
Glass. 
Book. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



HOW TO REST 






BOOKS BY 
WM. LEE HOWARD, M.D. 



SEX PROBLEMS IN WORRY AND 
WORK 

FACTS FOR THE MARRIED 

PLAIN FACTS ON SEX HYGIENE 

CONFIDENTIAL CHATS 
WITH BOYS 

CONFIDENTIAL CHATS 
WITH GIRLS 

BREATHE AND BE WELL 
HOW TO LIVE LONG 
HOW TO REST 



HOW TO REST 

FOOD FOR TIRED NERVES 
AND WEARY BODIES 



BY 



WILLIAM LEE HOWARD, M.D. 

AUTHOR OF " HOW TO LIVE LONG," " BREATHS AND BE WELL, 
"FACTS FOR THE MARRIED," ETC., ETC. 




NEW YORK 
EDWARD J. CLODE 






Copyright, 1917, by 
EDWARD J. CLODE 



" 



fiPP -4 (9(7 



i \ 



C!.A4 5?7?4 



THERE IS NO FIRE LIKE PASSION: THERE IS NO 
LOSING THROW LIKE HATRED: THERE IS NO PAIN 
LIKE THIS BODY: THERE IS NO HAPPINESS 
HIGHER THAN REST." 

The Dhammapada 



FOREWORD 

The aim of all true medical men and scien- 
tists today is prevention. 

This only can be accomplished through the 
education of the public. This means that the 
public must know and understand the causes of 
diseases and how to avoid them. It means that 
the old mystery surrounding the art of medicine 
and the science of surgery, as well as of the 
functions of the human body, must disappear. 

What has kept diseases always with us has 
been the ignorance of the masses concerning the 
simple and understandable causes of ill health, 
their complete dependence upon physicians, and 
the latter group of specially trained men not 
always knowing the necessity of taking into their 
confidence the patient as well as the general 
public. 

From time out of mind until the last decade, 
medicine and allied arts have been wrapped in 
mystery and the public therefore unable to aid 
in prevention. The individual has been kept 
from knowing that as an individual he has cer- 

[vii] 



FOREWORD 



tain forces within him for health and mental 
growth, as well as forces for illness and deteri- 
oration. 

From the mummery of the Egyptian priests 
— who were the ancient physicians — through the 
superstitions of the Middle Ages to the flagrant 
quacks and quackery, with all their ornate and 
blatant deceit, who flourished during the eight- 
eenth century up to a few years ago — yes, up 
to yesterday — when the doctor used frightening 
terms and mysterious phraseology, the public 
have been helpless victims of its ignorance. 

Yet at no period in the history of man was 
there any valid reason why the people should 
not have been instructed in the simple principles 
governing health and mental development. 

To sustain a false dignity, to impress the 
people with the vast and deep learning of the 
doctors — God save the mark! — even a recipe 
calling for a dose of salts must be written in 
Latin — or what went for Latin. 

But now the real physician has thrown away 
his gold-headed cane, put aside his distinctive 
costume of long, black coat and tall, profes- 
sionally shaped hat, and his mysterious manner 
has disappeared. 

[viii] 



FOREWORD 



Today the true physician comes out in the 
open to teach and give the people the knowl- 
edge he possesses and the information which 
makes for self-care, self-confidence, and a sur- 
cease of useless worrying. 

The prevention of typhoid — in fact of all air- 
and water-born diseases, of germ infections 
through wounds, of inherited constitutional 
weaknesses — only can be brought about through 
the understanding and intelligence of the gen- 
eral public. 

It is being done. The time will soon be here 
when a case of typhoid or scarlet fever means 
there is some criminal loose. We shall hunt 
that criminal down just as now we do a mur- 
derer. 

It is not much different when we come to the 
matter of brain exhaustion, nervous breakdown, 
mental illness. In these vital conditions, how- 
ever, the public has to be instructed more in 
detail. 

Individuality plays such a distinctive and 
powerful role in mental and nervous disturb- 
ances that every man and every woman 
must have a deeper understanding of the 
significance of individual idiosyncrasies and 

[ix] 



FOREWORD 



individual forces, weaknesses and predisposi- 
tions. 

Of all the different phases or departments 
of medicine, the one dealing with mental and 
nervous troubles has been the least explained to 
the general public. This attitude of secrecy- 
has prevented the intelligent element of the 
public from taking personal care of their brains 
and nerves. 

Here, mystery, silence, — yes, and the past ig- 
norance among doctors of the underlying forces 
making for mental health or disease, — have pre- 
vented the man on the street and the mother in 
her home from knowing the first symptoms or 
recognizing the first indications which call for 
immediate rest, relaxation and prevention. 

Hence many unfortunate individuals in the 
prime of life, or just commencing to blossom 
into full life, have been sent to asylums and 
institutions from which they never departed, or 
if so with a stigma upon them which remained 
throughout their distressed career. 

And many of these conditions are as prevent- 
able as we know typhoid fever or tuberculosis 
to be. 

This little book aims to aid in the prevention 

[x] 



FOREWORD 



of brain fatigue, body weariness and nervous 
exhaustion. 

I endeavor to put the facts plainly. I want 
every man and woman, every girl and youth, to 
know that there is no cause for worry when the 
brain seems to be wabbling, nerves uncontrol- 
lable, impulses teasing, and dispositions becom- 
ing unbearable. 

Underlying all these distressing troubles are 
discoverable causes. These causes are remedi- 
able. The affections only are dangerous and 
incurable when they have been neglected and 
the causes allowed to augment in force and 
frequency. 

Because they have not been understood, be- 
cause there were no means of obtaining intel- 
ligible and common-sense information about the 
brain and nerves, because it has been wrongly 
believed that drugs would cure, thousands of 
unfortunate men and women have lost their grip 
upon life, lost self-confidence, hope, ambition. 

And just think of it I All of these persons 
of potentiality for doing something worth- 
while in the world lost to it through ignorance 
of no fault of their own. 

In this little book I do not deal with or refer 
[xi] 



FOREWORD 



to real diseases of the brain and nerves — organic 
troubles. I try to point out the many little 
symptoms showing the necessity of brain rest 
and nerve nourishment. 

These symptoms frequently indicate an in- 
curable state if they are unheeded. They also 
mean that no injury to brain or nerves has yet 
occurred. 

They are the flagmen at crossings. Heed, 
follow the advice and instructions, and down 
goes the flag and the road is safe for traveling. 
WILLIAM LEE HOWARD. 

March, 1917. 



[xii] 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Man Who Tired Out His Family . 1 

II. Why Certain Brain Activities Need 

Rest 19 

III. How to Relax 39 

IV. Why " the Tired Shopgirl and the 

Wearied Woman Should Rest . . 59 
V. Injurious Self-fear and How to Drive 

It Out 79 

VI. Domestic Drudgery and Body Fatigue 97 
VII. Cleaning the Brain for New Thoughts 116 
VIII. How to Prevent Nervousness in 

Children 132 

IX. The Hidden Laboratories of the Body 

and Their Assumed Effects . . 147 
X. The Best Brain Food Is Practical 

Faith in Oneself . . . .162 



HOW TO REST 



CHAPTER I 

THE MAN WHO TIRED OUT HIS 
FAMILY 

" There is a pool in South Behar called the 
' Pool of the Blue Lotus,' and two Geese had 
for a long time lived there. They had a friend 
in the pool who was a Tortoise, and he was 
known as ' Shelly-neck.' It chanced one eve- 
ning that the Tortoise overheard some fishermen 
talking by the water. ' We will stop here to- 
night,' they said, ' and in the morning we will 
catch the fish, the tortoises and such like. Ex- 
tremely alarmed at this, the Tortoise repaired 
to his friends the Geese, and reported the con- 
versation. 

What ever am I to do, Gossips? ' he asked. 
1 The first thing is to be assured of the dan- 
ger,' said the Geese. 

' I am assured,' exclaimed the Tortoise; ' the 
first thing is to avoid it, don't you know? ' " 
(The Hitopadesa.) 

The first thing to do in obtaining rest for 

[i] 



HOW TO REST 



body and nerves, and peace of mind, is to under- 
stand those avoidable conditions which tire and 
exhaust. These conditions are manifold and 
frequently brought about by constant contact 
with those whose ragged nerves seem to infect 
all with whom they associate. Under certain 
conditions health is infectious, but always is 
nervous instability, mental wabbling and the 
grouch of psychic exhaustion infectious. 

I knew a man — one of many — who would go 
down to breakfast a terror to his family. He 
would sit down with a frown on his brow, an 
ominous growl for his wife and children, while 
the whole household tremblingly waited for his 
customary outburst of scoldings and temper. 

He would find fault with his coffee, by his 
dour attitude suppress the joy and laughter of 
his young son, then want to know why his wife 
did not realize that the whole country was going 
to the dogs. His morning amiability was that 
of a snarling, teeth-peeling dog. He soured and 
cooled everything on and at the table by his un- 
reasonableness and uncontrollable conduct. 
Even after he had left the house and the per- 
sonal factor of depression was absent, there still 
remained a state of depression and fatigued 

[2] 



HOW TO REST 



nerves in the wife and children. The atmosphere 
even penetrated to the kitchen, for not until the 
servants were assured that he had left the house 
did they sit down with relief and appetites. 

In sheer desperation sometimes the wife would 
open all the windows of the breakfast room, 
hoping the fresh air might rid the atmosphere 
of its noxious and infectious material. 

This irascible husband had complained morn- 
ing after morning of the lassitude and tired 
looks of his wife. He told her she was careless 
and neglectful of her health; that she was get- 
ting too thin and scrawny, losing her color ; that 
she needed to " brace up," take more time to 
rest, for she was lacking in all interest in his 
work and what was going on in the world. 

Yet few men knew better than he the injuri- 
ous effects of nagging, unkind words; injustice 
to one who was constantly striving to do right 
and always had done right. He knew the dan- 
gerous effects upon the ductless glands in women 
who are psychically wearied; how rapidly they 
will dry up and bring on premature age and 
sometimes insanity. He realized the absolute 
necessity of keeping the body and mind per- 
fectly poised if health and happiness are to be 

[3] 



HOW TO REST 



obtained and retained. Knew all these facts, yet 
tired out his wife in a far more injurious way 
than any scrubwoman ever suffered. 

He had reached that period in the life of so 
many successful men of knowing how to control 
others but not themselves. And yet there is no 
stronger foundation for a man to build upon 
than that one he builds for himself. The one we 
build for others is certain to have some defect 
unless it is well cemented by the after-work of 
the individual himself — or herself. 

This husband, who was rapidly tiring out his 
wife and family, was a refined and educated 
physician, yet blind to the fact that every morn- 
ing he started and aggravated a physical and 
mental indigestion in all with whom he came 
in contact — his family. 

I believe more cases of indigestion in wives 
are due to the nagging and unkind, stinging 
words uttered at the breakfast table than to 
anything eaten or drank. No kind of pills, 
tablets or digestive ferments do aught but ir- 
reparable injury in the majority of stomach 
troubles, for these fundamentally are due to 
outside ferments — the sour dispositions of the 
" head of the family." 

[4] 



HOW TO REST 



But to get back to our patient — the husband, 
not the suffering wife. 

He was a specialist in nervous diseases ; pa- 
tient, sympathetic and eminently successful with 
irritable and unreasonable neurasthenics and 
hysterics, yet he had brought his own family to 
a state of nervous exhaustion through his con- 
duct at home. 

So disagreeable and unreasonable had he be- 
come in his home that finally his family contrived 
to get through breakfast before he came down. 
Otherwise they would feel tired out before the 
day had begun for them. 

He would often find fault with his son's 
school report, never realizing that he so upset 
the mental poise of the lad that he went to 
school unable to concentrate upon his lessons. 

Finally this state of affairs put the family 
into a strained attitude and instead of matters 
improving under the new breakfast arrange- 
ment, they became worse. 

The wife merged into an extremely nervous 

state, but the only treatment she received from 

a man sought far and wide for advice was: 

' You're too nervous. You need a rest. You're 

too sensitive. Why don't you let up on your 

[5] 



HOW TO REST 



housekeeping, cleaning, dusting, fretting about 
useless matters. You're fretting yourself to 
death and making this house a place of terror to 
me! You don't eat enough breakfast — you just 
nibble and go out of the room to look around 
for a turned-up rug. Why don't you rest? " 

On one particular morning when this hus- 
band and father came down before the family 
had fled, and was letting loose his garbage of 
scoldings, his son said to him, " Pa, give us a 
rest — all of us! " 

It did the trick, for the man was a well- 
meaning man and the son's advice struck him 
as humorous but really valuable advice. 

The principles which underlie human be- 
havior usually can be traced to the mechanism 
of character formation and character dissocia- 
tion. If these psychic mechanisms are not 
understood and controlled or utilized for pro- 
gression, deterioration and retrogression result. 

There are masses of statistics, rules, systems, 
measurements lately put forth, showing how to 
estimate the physical or caloric output of the 
human machine. Measurements for physical 
energy, psychological tests for efficiency and 
adaptability, physiological experiments attempt- 

[6] 



HOW TO REST 



ing to tell the wife how " to feed the brute," 
and many other good schemes for aiding the 
body to work and repair itself, are ready at 
hand. 

All these facts are mighty good facts to 
tabulate and give to the wife who has to depend 
upon her husband to saw the wood, fetch the 
water, pay the bills ; but valueless and discourag- 
ing to that woman who has to live with a man 
whose mental energy and nervous force are 
daily expended upon a score of other women and 
men, and who returns home to blow out the 
exhaust and nauseating residue. 

This particular husband left his house for his 
office with the son's admonition, " Pa, give us 
a rest! ", repeating its truth and suggestion over 
and over. He analyzed the matter, pulled his 
grouch apart and realized that his conduct was 
literally tiring out his wife — wrecking her life. 

" Yes, she needs rest ; freedom from my in- 
fernal nagging, freedom from the fear of my — 
no, not bodily presence, but mental contamina- 
tion." 

Such were his conclusions and musings as he 
walked on. He saw now that to send his wife 
away " for a rest " when she would return only 

[7] 



HOW TO REST 



to face the same conditions which were wearing 
her out was utter folly. "Folly?" he said to 
himself, — " no; cruel! Yes; give them a rest! " 

He sent for me, and after a very plain talk 
requested me to explain matters to the good 
wife and see to it that all be assured of the kind 
of rest they needed. 

"It is the old maxim applied to the doctor: 
1 Shoemakers' children generally go barefoot,' " 
he remarked. " Here I am trying to adjust 
nervous instabilities, worries and ' tired-out 
women,' by getting their husbands to apply the 
same treatment to their wives they apply to 
their clients and customers — courtesy, calm 
speech, mental poise, sympathy, jovial conversa- 
tion, sincerity — all those personal attributes and 
factors which smooth life's roadways, yet deny- 
ing my own wife and children these absolutely 
necessary conditions for health and happiness. 

" We know," he continued, " a good deal 
about the results adequate mental energy brings 
to those who need our energy. Here I am a 
highly specialized organism capable of transmit- 
ting and transmuting energy and doing so every 
day. But about the only thought I have had of 
my home and wife is that of a place to renew 

[8] 







HOW TO REST 



my energy by the intake of food and thorough 
sleep. And, worse than this selfish and purely 
personal idea, I have believed that was about all 
my wife and children needed — the cash of the 
world and the calories of the physiologists. 

" The fact that the professional or business 
man uses up his energy and disturbs his mental 
poise during his day's work may be a truthful 
explanation of the many tired-out wives and ir- 
ritable conditions of many households — but it is 
no excuse. 

" I have been just as much at fault as my 
male patients and just as unjust and brutal — 
yes, brutal is the right word. 

" Why, it is really funny for the moment. 
Only yesterday I tried to impress a very promi- 
nent business man, whose wife is a neglected 
woman in the sense we are discussing, that it 
was just as necessary to save up, to take home, 
kind words, appreciation, nervous stability and 
love's energy as it was money — in fact, far more 
so, for it is a wrong idea the world has that all 
a woman wants from a man whom she loves is 
money and the liberty to spend it. No; money 
will not restore or repair shattered nerves where 
ugly dispositions have been the cause. 

[9] 



HOW TO REST 



" There are all kinds of tired-out wives and 
working women who need medical advice and 
treatment. But the wife who has for a hus- 
band one who exhausts his nervous force upon 
others, saves none for his family and brings 
home the depressing by-products, needs the rest 
which only can come from a rested or resting 
husband. This means one who has force enough 
left to control himself. 

" My wife is tired out, worn out and frayed 
out until she is really a wreck simply because I 
kept away from her those receptors for real 
rest absolutely needed by all humans. Food for 
the stomach, sleep for the brain, really are sec- 
ondary factors for energy and rest. We must 
have the sun of heavens and the sunny person- 
ality of those we love — in fact, of everyone 
around us. 

" Now, the enormous amount of energy 
elaborated or released by a good idea or sym- 
pathetic act cannot be estimated. The enor- 
mous amount of depression which can be 
released and literally shot into another close to 
us, spiritually and physically, only can be real- 
ized when your son tells you to give his mother 
' a rest.' 

[10] 



HOW TO REST 



" I've given you quite a lecture, old chap, but 
it has been a sort of Freudian cathartic for me. 
I have let out a lot of rotten temperamental 
stuff that was in me. Now to replace it by- 
worth-while stuff." 

" Well," I said, " I hope you'll do better in 
adjusting your psychic mechanism so it will run 
smoothly and noiselessly around your house, 
than you did with that motor boat we had. 
Remember? " 

He smiled and nodded affirmatively. 

" Jack, you remind me of that erratic and 
neurasthenic boat. She was a handsome model, 
but you never could control her actions because 
you could not control yourself. Her hull and 
fittings were of the best, and wherever we suc- 
ceeded in finally anchoring she attracted much 
attention. Of course, those were the early days 
of motors. We didn't understand much about 
them — any more than you have understood your 
wife. You would not take the time nor have 
the patience to try to understand that boat. 

" When she would stop right in the midst of 
good going you blamed and cursed her. You 
hammered here, tinkered there, oiled her so her 
footboards were afloat in oil. You blamed her 

[ii] 



HOW TO REST 



maker, sent her designer to , then threat- 
ened to sink her just as soon as you could work 
her into a safe place for you to get ashore. 
You lost all faith in motor boats and said 
they never could be made so as to be depended 
upon. 

" There was nothing the matter with you, so 
you repeatedly said — it was all the fault of the 
engine. When we finally reached New London 
and once got ashore, you gave a farewell kick at 
the stern just as the engine let out a terrific 
back explosion which nearly blew you into the 
harbor. 

" Out of patience, disgusted and growling at 
me and everything, when a lobsterman asked 
you what you'd take for the boat, you replied: 
' Anything. But I warn you — she's no good. 
Engine won't work except in fits — when it wants 
to stop it just stops.' 

■ You sold it for less than the brass fittings 
cost. But, say, Jack, the fellow who bought her 
had reserved his energy and patience. He knew 
the way to please that engine so it would work 
for him, for the next morning he had it run- 
ning around the harbor beating out all the other 
boats and sold it for a large sum. 

[12] 



HOW TO REST 



" Now, do you see the moral, or lesson, what- 
ever you want to call it? 

" You have been unable to run your house- 
hold motor so it would go along smoothly and 
joyfully. You have been blaming the patient 
wife. Now start in and see where the fault 
really lies. No, you don't get me to do what 
that lobsterman did with your boat — start your 
house boat. You have to overhaul your psychic 
motor yourself, and when it is adjusted the wife 
will get the rest she needs." 

Self-control is the gold within us. Like that 
rare substance it must be searched for and 
brought to the surface where it can be refined. 
Some men are merely gold-plated ; beneath, they 
are soft metal or alloy. In these individuals 
tests of life wear away in spots the superficial 
control and development, and man is revealed 
in all his weakness. 

This physician had a rich vein of gold run- 
ning all through his system, but had neglected 
to search for it while developing for others their 
powers for self-control. He immediately com- 
menced to get out his own ore. 

Physically he always took the best of care to 
be in good condition. There was nothing the 

[13] 



HOW TO REST 



matter with his physiologic system, brain or 
nerves, and he knew that all he needed to bring 
peace and rest to his wife was to get out of his 
psychic nature the injurious morning person- 
ality. For remember the best of us have a 
second personality nagging away at our bet- 
ter and primary one, and it is the weakening 
of this secondary ego with the strengthen- 
ing of the primary that makes the conquering 
man. 

This duality of humans accounts for the blame 
or praise every honest man and woman is 
bound to receive. Our good enemies see only the 
personality they desire to see, our real friends 
see only our real personality. Hence there 
never was, there will never be, nor is there now, a 
man who is always blamed, or a man who is 
always praised. 

The last thing our patient did that day before 
leaving his office was to put down in red ink on 
yellow paper: "B , you are under treat- 
ment. Go down smiling. Now smile, smile; 
you disagreeable cuss! Don't you utter a word 
in the morning unless it can be a kind word. 
Remember now; this is the first lesson. Now 
smile!'' 

[14] 



HOW TO REST 



He pinned this chromatic adviser under his 
necktie. When he retired that night he had 
completely forgotten his resolution until, in pull- 
ing off his collar and tie, the pin which fastened 
the paper pricked his finger. " Good pin! " he 
muttered, and repeated the advice inscribed. 
So he went to sleep with this self-applied sug- 
gestion sinking into his memory cells. 

Evidently his habit of self -neglect in control 
had a forcible hold upon him, for he rose the 
next morning and the first words he spoke 
before being fully dressed were, " A queer sort 
of wife you are. Didn't I tell you to have 
the plumber here yesterday? This shower is 
plugged." 

The nerve-wearied woman fled while trying to 
tell him that she had telephoned for the plumber. 
She did not wait for the dreaded usual out- 
bursts which she knew would last until he left 
the house. But in dressing, that paper turned 
up in his hands and the man dropped into a 
chair, reading the instructions, then got up 
smiling and went down smiling. 

The son had hurriedly finished his breakfast 
and left the room. The wife came in, hovering 
around like a frightened bird, and received 

[15] 



HOW TO REST 



quite a shock as smilingly her husband re- 
marked, " This grapefruit is not ripe." 

Well, even a complaint with a smile was some 
relief from what she had tremblingly been ex- 
pecting. 

He had the paper stuffed in his pocket and 
felt for it. He wanted to place it before him on 
the table; but a false shame, a feeling that he 
would be demonstrating a weakness, held him 
back. However, the incident made him again 
realize that he was really a pretty mean man in 
his home. 

This fact, coming to him again and again, 
drove away the smile and brought the look so 
well known to his wife, and she fled the room. 
He finished his breakfast without another word 
and was pleased with himself as he left the 
house with even this childish improvement. 

He kept that paper pinned to his necktie, 
shirt or handkerchief for a week, adding nothing 
to it. Several times he thought he would place 
it in the mirror, but feared his wife would see 
it. But, woman as she was, she knew he was 
struggling somehow, under some method, to at 
least be less of a morning terror. She knew if 
he suspected he was under any kind of watchful- 

[16] 



HOW TO REST 



ness, he would rebel, and then matters would 
be as bad if not worse than before. 

He improved. Noticeably to all the house- 
hold he became less of a terror. One morning 
he rose before his wife — a very unusual thing — 
and while putting on his shoes uttered a very 
forcible, "Ouch! What the " 

The wife turned over to hide her laughter; 
the first spontaneous laughter she had had for 
months, for she had surreptitiously discovered 
him the night before putting tacks in his. shoes. 

She dressed and went down just as he entered 
the breakfast room; kissed him as he sat down 
and took her place, smiling, at her rightful end 
of the table. 

For the first time in years there was decent 
peace in the house that morning. As he was 
leaving to step into the auto, the happy wife 
put her arms around him and said: " Jack, it's 
so good of you to try to get into good humor 
once more — it's more like the good old times. 
Keep up the tacks, won't you? You've had 
all of us on tacks for the last few years," and 
laughingly she rushed up the stairs. 

Well, they soon understood each other. They 
had a good talk over it that night after return- 

[17] 



HOW TO REST 



ing from the theater and supper. He told her 
all about his treatment of himself — how he hated 
himself for tiring them all out ; how he never in- 
tended to say a cross word, but in spite of all 
his resolutions his tongue would spit spiteful- 
ness and meanness. 

In time he cured himself. That is, he gave to 
his wife that constant rest she had so long 
needed. In his private library now hangs this 
advice from the ethical handbook of Buddhism: 
" Rouse thyself by thyself, examine thyself by 
thyself." 

" Search for the woman " is a maxim of 
criminologists. When you have a wife tired out, 
a woman who apparently has lost all interest in 
the activities of the world, yet still clings to her 
children and home, a woman whose sole remedy 
is a long period of rest — look for the nagging 
husband ! 



[18] 



CHAPTER II 

WHY CERTAIN BRAIN ACTIVITIES 
NEED REST 

The only person I know of who really had 
three days of continuous rest was Jonah. Yet 
it is probable that even this fortunate man had 
much to worry about which put his brain upon 
a strain. To be sure, he secured some physical 
rest, and undoubtedly as he again sat down on 
the sands of the shore mental quietude came 
over him. 

I have often thought that the very best sani- 
tariums for the " rest cure " would be to secure 
a score or more of whales, confine them to some 
salubrious harbor, and rent their abdominal 
rooms to those who needed a complete change of 
environment and freedom from the annoyances 
of the outside world. I know of no other way to 
keep the American from getting stock reports, 
keeping the restless confined to quarters where 
cocktails and cabarets are not handy, and giving 

[19] 



HOW TO REST 



the patient time to think over his constant waste 
of energy. 

It is 'almost an impossibility for the active 
American to secure complete rest of body and 
mind under the conditions of competition, rush 
and erroneous ideas of success. The normal 
" rest cure," undisturbed slumber, is seldom the 
fortunate lot of progressive man or woman to- 
day. Yet to possess this normal and physiologic 
factor for perfect health is an absolute necessity 
and not a difficult thing to acquire. 

It may be that our unrest and nerve-racking 
methods of living in the past few decades were 
necessary in the course of our social evolution- 
ary progress, but the time has arrived when we 
should take into serious consideration the causes 
and effects of our overrush of mental and physi- 
cal energies. 

While we have progressed intellectually by 
the steady strain and work animating our civili- 
zation, we have yet to learn how to rest body 
and mind so that we and our followers can have 
full nervous force for continuance of progres- 
sion and also a reserved power for emergencies — 
individual and national. 

The peoples of the East went through a 
[20] 



HOW TO REST 



period of energetic progress, of " hustle," wars 
of conquest, feverish hunts for wealth and 
power, and finally reached a high state of civil- 
ization which in many respects we have not 
equaled. No matter how barbarous or " un- 
civilized " their social and religious life appears 
to us, the fact that they gradually exhausted 
their national and individual energies and sank 
into a state of worldly indifference and apathy 
from which they have not recovered should be 
a lesson to us. 

We are a nation living upon our nerves. The 
successful merchant and the farmer's wife 
equally suffer from lack of power to rest at 
will their daily exhausted forces. We shall not 
reach the level of the Oriental by simply ac- 
cepting the conditions as inevitable — as fate, 
Kismet — nor will a new and strange religion 
bring us to the state of believing that mental 
poise and physical improvement can be found 
in submission to things as they are, or that by 
sitting down unwashed and gazing for days at 
our naked belly we shall be carried away in a 
cloud of glory to some lotus fields where the 
seraphs will feed us on caviar and offer the 
drink of everlasting manhood. 

[21] 



HOW TO REST 



No, we have been going to the other extreme. 
We have overworked our bodies and nerves to 
such an extent that many, very many, are chas- 
ing the blondes of the cabarets and accepting 
the poisons of the white-clad philanthropists of 
the cafes. 

The American people must learn how to rest 
and repair physiologic forces and powers. And 
they must understand how to utilize the natural 
tonics and repair material within their bodies 
and not through the ruinous drugs now so uni- 
versal. 

The energy which now is either too early ex- 
hausted or ignorantly dissipated can and must 
be reserved for progressive work. This work 
we have been set to do can be done with all that 
pleasure health and lasting vigor inevitably 
give. 

We need to adopt new forms of rest for the 
body and brain — individual forms varying in 
detail according to the nature and condition of 
the individual. The old methods and ideas of a 
few days' vacations, afternoon naps, Sundays' 
loafing or in bed, retreats, sanitariums, the 
" tired business man's show," and worse than 
all, drugs to " relieve that exhausted feeling," 

[22] 



HOW TO REST 



must go into the discard, where already we have 
tossed many fallacies. 

For the mind we need to learn how to control 
all impulses — good or evil. We need to learn 
how to do and not to do. We need to learn 
how to couple Action to Will, mental poise to 
energy. We must know how to uncouple the 
daily unessentials from essentials; to recognize 
brain fatigue from untrained will-power and 
how to rest the former state and develop the 
latter. 

All these attributes of mental and moral pro- 
gression can be acquired without losing any of 
our potential powers for force and energy. We 
shall always have to fight our way upward and 
we must always be in fighting trim to do so. 

It was neglect of these facts which brought 
the Eastern nations to their present state of 
apathy and pacifism even in mental contests. 
Their religions gave them all sorts and kinds 
of aphorisms, prayers, moral advice and ethical 
rules that taught the habit of non-resistance in 
everything. 

' Victory breeds hatred, for the conquered is 
unhappy. He who has given up both victory 
and defeat, he, the contented, is happy. 

[23] 



HOW TO REST 



" No sufferings befall the man who is not at- 
tached to name and form, and who calls nothing 
his own. 

" Sitting alone, lying down alone, walking 
alone without ceasing, and alone subduing him- 
self, let a man be happy near the edge of the 
forest." 

These are samples of the advice given to an 
exhausted race. We need to cull a little from 
the books of the East, but the majority of the 
stuff they offer for peace and rest of body and 
mind is only fit for the half-witted and the aged, 
incurable pacifists. 

For example — here is a bit of good advice 
found in the Dhammapada which applies to 
many neurasthenics today: " They who fear 
when they ought not fear, and fear not when 
they ought to fear, such men, embracing false 
doctrines, enter the evil path." 

The one outstanding trait of Americans is 
impatience with moralizing and theorizing. 
They " want to be shown." Perhaps this is the 
best way at present to get facts into working 
order. 

One great cause for so many wives and 
mothers becoming exhausted long before their 

[24] 



HOW TO REST 



time — and really there never should be a time 
of exhaustion, only periods of fatigue — is a 
wrong sense of duty. It sounds strange, but 
a false " sense of duty " is the real cause of 
many disrupted households. 

The first duty of every man and woman is 
to procure and secure health and radiate it. If 
you are mentally and physically in health you 
think right and go morally right. You guide 
right, advise correctly, influence for the best. 

You can spread ill health as quickly as you 
can smallpox. Your disposition can be trans- 
ferred to those around you if they have not 
learned to shun those who constantly talk of 
their troubles, disagreeable feelings and nasty 
tempers. 

The first duty of a wife or mother — in fact, 
of everyone — is to see that they avoid all com- 
pany and conversation which does not radiate 
the warmth of health. Over two hundred years 
ago Sir Richard Steele wrote in the Spectator: 
" It is an unreasonable thing some men expect 
of their acquaintances. They are either com- 
plaining that they are out of order or displeased, 
or they know not how; and are so far from let- 
ting that be a reason for retiring to their own 

[25] 



HOW TO REST 



homes that they make it their argument for 
coming into company. What has anybody to do 
with accounts of a man's being indisposed but 
his physician? If a man laments in company, 
where the rest are in a humor enough to enjoy 
themselves, he should not take it ill if a servant 
is ordered to present him with a porringer of 
caudle or posset drink, by way of admonition 
that he go home to bed. 

" That part of life which we ordinarily under- 
stand by the word conversation is an indulgence 
to the sociable part of our make and should in- 
cline us to bring our proportion of good will or 
good humour among friends we meet with, and 
not trouble them with relations which must of 
necessity oblige them to a real or feigned afflic- 
tion. Cares, distresses, diseases, uneasinesses, 
and dislikes of our own are by no means to be 
obtruded upon our friends. 

" If we would consider how little of this vicis- 
situde of motion and rest which we call life is 
spent with satisfaction, we should be more ten- 
der of our friends than to bring them little sor- 
rows which do not belong to them. There is 
no real life but cheerful life; therefore, vale- 
tudinarians should be sworn, before they enter 

[26] 



HOW TO REST 



company, not to say a word of themselves till 
the meeting breaks up." 

There are some women who think it is their 
duty to attend every funeral in their commun- 
ity. They keep mourning for this express pur- 
pose. They radiate a feeling of depression from 
the kitchen to the henhouse. There are other 
women who believe it is their " duty " to go to 
every social gathering, so as to spread an at- 
mosphere of sympathy for their real and imagi- 
nary woes and troubles. Others there are who 
consider that only by repeating their tales of 
body misery to a tired husband can they demon- 
strate their wifely affection. Nothing so ex- 
hausts nervous force as the mental attitude of 
these women with a false sense of duty. 

Keep your troubles and ailments for the doc- 
tor and for yourself to conquer. This is the first 
law of self-control. If you cannot spread hap- 
piness don't spread misery. Every time you 
gather force enough to tell others of your lack 
of mental poise, you have to work overtime to 
gather more for the next victim. 

There is another kind of " sense of duty " 
which wrecks. You wake up in the morning tired 
out ; force yourself to get the breakfast, see that 

[27] 



HOW TO REST 



the children are properly dressed and off to 
school. Now, you well know the cause of the 
" tired-out feeling," but you neglected it to look 
after — as you think — the children. You think 
you are doing your duty; but you have in fact 
neglected it. 

How? Because for several days you have had 
a headache and have been feeling " all run down." 
You consulted your doctor. He told you that 
you had some body poisons in you which needed 
to be washed out. He is a modern physician, 
scientific, and aims to show you how to treat 
and not drug your body. He insisted that you 
drink eight glasses of water a day ; three of them 
at meals. Also a tumblerful before breakfast. 
He told you to get out in the air for an hour 
every day and walk briskly. To eat more green 
vegetables and less bread and pastry. 

Did you follow all the directions? You did 
not. You tried the water before breakfast, but 
it went against you. Of course. Too long 
have you literally water-starved yourself. 
Ninety per cent of American women do. Then 
the walks? You meant to get out the very 
next day. Mary's stockings needed darning, 
and so you could not go. " Oh, it's such a 

[28] 



HOW TO REST 



bother washing greens! Anyway, they cost too 
much now! " 

Two or three days of this want of will-power 
to do your duty to yourself, and of course to 
your family, and the headaches increase in force 
and frequency. You don't like to go again to 
the doctor — you know just what he will say. 
Also, Mrs. Brown had headaches just like yours 
and Bunkum's Pills cured them. So you send 
Mary, when she comes from school, to pay the 
druggist fifty cents for two cents'^ -worth of 
poison — poison to you. And vegetables cost 
too much! 

You see, you have no control over your will. 
You go the way of the least resistance and think 
you are doing your duty. 

The first thing to do to rest that brain of 
yours is to work it. A ridiculous statement? 
Not at all, when you understand. 

There lie in your brain certain cell centers 
governing will-power. These need to be put to 
work to do that which the doctor ordered you 
to do. 

It is the commencement of brain rest when 
you start to do that which you are unaccus- 
tomed to doing and " feel too tired to do." 

[29] 



HOW TO REST 



When you do it you give the tired brain cells a 
rest. 

" But Mary's stockings cannot wait? " Both 
Mary and her stockings can wait for you to get 
health. Then again, you will say, if the doctor 
tells you to darn them later in the day: " Oh, 
I'm too tired out when night comes. I just 
can't keep my eyes open." 

Of course you are tired, because you have not 
rid yourself of the body poisons and supplied 
the human machine with sufficient water and 
fresh air. If you had done so your fatigue 
would have disappeared. You are not tired out 
on account of work, but simply because you have 
tried to work with an unfit machine; and you 
have attempted to keep it going by deadening 
the warning through pills. 

You never can train your mental forces nor 
rest that everyday set of brain cells until you 
start right in and do that which you know you 
ought to do and won't do. You should reverse 
your sense of duty. " I ought to clean the par- 
lor today," you say; "how can I get the time 
to walk?" You see here how those tired 
housekeeping brain cells have you in their 
toils? 

[30] 



HOW TO REST 



Take the time to walk and to do all other 
matters necessary to get and keep health. In 
perfect health you will find plenty of time for 
doing those manifold household duties. If the 
parlor interferes with your duty to your body, 
shut up the parlor. If you think otherwise, 
then your brain and nerves surely need a long 
rest. 

You are in a very bad though common state. 
You fear the talk of others, you fear that your 
husband will think you are neglecting your 
" duty." 

Never, never was there a normal and healthy 
man who did not prefer red cheeks and laughter 
to tired looks and a perfectly cleaned parlor or 
dusted library. 

Rest for such women as you — and they are 
spread all over the land — is to think more of 
your inside body and less of outside opinions. 
Train new brain cells and rest the old. This is 
really to give your husband a new wife for the 
old. 

" I know I ought to do as you say, Doctor — 
but how can I? " is what we hear every day of 
our struggle to get the American housewife to 
rest brain and nerves. 

[31] 



HOW TO REST 



Remember that the food for tired nerves and 
wearied bodies is the change and rest certain 
groups of cells receive. You may rest somewhat 
a tired back when you lie down, but you are 
working tired nerves if you keep thinking of 
what you should be doing. 

If you have lost your appetite, if you are 
bilious, if there is temporary indigestion, what 
do you do? 

Rest the stomach. 

Your eyes are tired from overreading or from 
some other strain; you know you must give 
them rest. If your feet are sore and very 
sensitive you know you have been on them too 
long or else that your boots or shoes are ill- 
fitting. What do you do under these circum- 
stances ? 

Relieve the pressure and rest the feet. 

In fact, in all the grosser or frame work of 
the body you recognize the fatigue point and 
rest bones and muscles. Worry, fear, working 
on your nerves, close mental application, bring 
a pressure upon nerves and brain. Mental pain 
may be due to ill-fitting thoughts; nerve pain to 
too long pull upon the nervous system. No 
matter about the exact details — like the tired 

[32] 



HOW TO REST 



and sore feet, they must be relieved and have 
rest. 

Everything throughout nature from trees to 
man has long periods of rest and time for re- 
pair, except the American man and his woman. 
In spite of our vacations, summer hotels, winter 
resorts and globe traveling, or " trotting," to 
be exact, we do not know how to rest, or will not 
see the necessity of resting at certain intervals 
brain and nerves. 

The contemplation which went with piety, 
the fast days of the Church and " rest days " of 
our primitive ancestors, were conditions which 
kept people of the past from having frayed 
nerves and fatigued bodies. It is not our rush 
and hurry, our brain activities, which produce a 
nation of drug-takers and exhausted citizens, 
but the absence of periods of proper rest. 

All people of rudimentary intellect had and 
have many days for refraining from labor. But 
the world's work today is done through intel- 
lectual labor, yet we have not reached that in- 
tellectual point of recognizing that we need 
today some method of forcing days of brain 
rest. Individual, self-made laws, of course, not 
group-inflicted, legalized hours to govern the 

[38] 



HOW TO REST 



creative work of men and women. In the big 
financial institutions this fact is recognized, and 
no man is kept in or promoted to any respon- 
sible position who does not take long periods of 
absolute freedom from his work. 

Materialism in its best form, freedom from 
religious and caste superstition, has done away 
with the old regulations of man's need for rest 
and relaxation. But some form of brain and 
nerve rest we must have. This is to come 
through our higher intelligence and knowledge 
of the physical and chemical forces within our 
bodies and how these act and react upon ener- 
gizing powers. 

It is necessary to explain in a few simple 
words just what forces enable us to keep going 
and just what actions on our part will slow 
down or injure our mental capacities. Only 
by such a casual insight of modern physiologic 
discoveries can one understand the real reasons 
for the instructions and lessons to follow. 

One frequently hears a man or woman boast- 
ing of their powers of endurance and recupera- 
tion. Such will tell you, before middle age has 
been reached, that they can work all day and 
dance or sport all night and never get tired. 

[34] 



HOW TO REST 



"Rest? Bosh! I can keep this up all night. 
All I need is a cold bath and a few winks, and 
I'm fit as a fiddle to go to the office! " 

It is true, all they say. In those of normal 
health there are body juices sent out by little 
glands which keep the muscles and nerves plenti- 
fully supplied with new energy and eat up fa- 
tigue products. 

If a young man is a big spender but small 
earner, if his capital is conservatively invested 
but does not return sufficient interest to cover 
his extravagant expenditures, he will foolishly 
believe that a little of his capital will not be 
missed. 

So finding himself short of cash and deter- 
mined to keep on, he uses some of his well- 
invested securities. We all know just what hap- 
pens in the end. Either he becomes a complete 
bankrupt, or, if he comes to his senses in time, 
suffers a depletion of his income. 

There is nothing permanent in this world. 
Nothing is at a standstill. Everything is go- 
ing forward or going backward. Man rests 
and improves ; wastes and decays. 

It is now known that body fatigue — this of 
course includes brain and nerves — is repaired 

[35] 



HOW TO REST 



by adrenin. This energizing substance comes 
from the adrenals — two glands located in the 
region of the kidneys. 

Adrenin is a fatigue elixir. It enables the 
tired person to recover almost immediately from 
complete exhaustion when it is artificially given 
by using an extract from calves or sheep. 

Of course any such use as a habit would soon 
wear out the human machine as would a forced 
fire making a hundred pounds of steam upon 
a boiler built to withstand only seventy-five 
pounds. 

What cause an excess flow of the natural 
adrenin in the blood are emotions. Fear, anger, 
worry, or any distress of mind sends an extra 
amount of this revitalizing substance rushing 
through arteries, veins, brain and nerves. 

It causes many changes in the body's economy 
to take place rapidly; such as transforming 
starch into sugar, which renews energy. 

When you have been emotional, when you 
have " lost your temper," when you have had 
jealousy tearing away at your peace of 
mind, there has been a call upon the adrenal 
bank. 

When you have become fatigued by the work 
[36] 



HOW TO REST 



and worry of the day, when you have been 
on a long, big strain of maternal or financial 
anxiety, when you and he have been spluttering 
and throwing verbal brickbats at each other, 
a hurry call is sent for more adrenin. It 
responds, and temporarily relieves and revivifies. 

We have no exact knowledge of just how long 
the adrenals can keep up with these extra calls 
upon them, nor how rapidly they can manufac- 
ture and turn out adrenin. But common sense 
and reasoning from analogy tell us that these 
glands certainly have a limit to their endurance 
and capacity. 

Give them periods of rest, and as any other 
organ in the body, their functions can be re- 
tained up to tlie time Gabriel blows your call. 

You now can see that after you have been 
under any emotional or physical strain, and 
even feeling " all right " because of the effect of 
an extra flow of adrenin, you should take a 
period of rest and relaxation for the sake of the 
adrenals. 

They have done their temporary work and 
made you feel rested, but now turn round and 
give them time to store up more of their re- 
vitalizing material. 

[37] 



HOW TO REST 



You need not try to sleep, but you must relax 
in every way. This is something of an art, but 
the only way of resting the inner activities of 
the body's forces. 



[38] 



CHAPTER III 
HOW TO RELAX 

The bow which is never unstrung and the 
human body which is never relaxed in time 
lose their powers for resistance and energy to 
spring into usefulness. 

The most perfect example of the ability to 
relax every muscle in the body after a period of 
tension is to be seen in the cat tribe. The ordi- 
nary house cat will watch for a rat or bird with 
every muscle, including eye and ear muscles, 
upon a steady, taut tension. Great nervous 
force is used to keep up this attitude, for every 
organ in the cat's body is under complete con- 
trol and internal glands are steadily pouring 
their stimulating juices into nerves and vessels. 

The condition under which the animal must 
remain for minutes or hours in order to get its 
food is similar to a powerful spring wound up 
to be released at a certain moment. When the 
game is caught there is complete relaxation 
throughout the body — brain, nerves and mus- 

[39] 



HOW TO REST 



cles. Now comes the method of conscious re- 
laxation. The cat finds a warm and quiet place, 
slowly washes its face and paws, stretches, then 
lies straightened out for a few moments while 
its muscles apparently lose all semblance of 
power or strength. Limp, soft, inert appears 
the whole muscular structure of the relaxing ani- 
mal. After a while, however, it seems to have 
given every cell in its body sufficient revivifying 
material; then it will curl up and sleep — restore 
energy. 

Every active man and woman is tensioned to 
get the best possible living. Some there are 
who never relax. The man in business, the wife 
whose work seems never to be done, the news- 
paper people, and especially the working young 
woman. 

There are forms of relaxation as old as civili- 
zation which in their various phases have done 
much injury. Going on sprees, the constant 
desire for new experiences and pleasures in the 
working girl, the intense social ambitions and 
hunt for social success, and in those suddenly 
become rich the rapid impulse to make display, 
are from a psychologic standpoint merely the 
subconscious demand for relaxation from the 

[40] 



HOW TO REST 



daily strain. Even war is an expression of this 
demand to get relief from the tension of com- 
mercial and political life and to put into activity 
the steady drill, study and implements upon 
which so long attention has been focused. 

All these injurious factors of civilization have 
been necessary to relieve individual and na- 
tional stress and strain. They have taught us, 
through an intensive study of human and animal 
psychology, that the body and brain must have 
some form of rest, and that the human family 
as now developed must change its forms and 
methods. 

All forms of alcoholic and drug habits are 
merely expressions of a desire in those of nerv- 
ous instability to get away from the exhaustion 
due to overwork on the part of the individual 
or his forebears. The remedy does not lie in 
prohibition, legal restrictions, prayers or tem- 
perance exhortation, but in education in its 
broadest sense. 

Regulation through instruction, so that those 
of exhausted vitality will not reproduce their 
kind; knowledge that all forms of relaxation 
in which excitement plays a part are injurious 
and tear down instead of building up, and the 

[41] 



HOW TO REST 



lessons to be derived from all animals that when 
strain and stress have brought temporary ex- 
haustion the way out is not another form of 
excitement but a calm, quiet retirement where 
ear, eye, brain and nerves may rest undis- 
turbed. 

In one respect the human male animal is the 
greatest coward in all animal life. He fears he 
will be considered as lacking in vigor if he 
should take an hour in the middle of the day to 
repair his adrenals or rest the heart. There 
are men in offices all day who need to get out 
in the open and exercise. There are men under 
great responsibilities who need to quietly go to 
a darkened room and relax every organ in their 
bodies — to get down a high blood pressure, to 
relieve a surcharged brain. The general rule is 
for the man who needs exercise to get a few 
glasses of beer, take a stuffy car home, growl 
at his wife, complain of his employers and smoke 
a few rank cigars. 

The man who needs to lie down and relax in 
a physiological manner generally motors to his 
golf club in the summer, where he again puts 
himself under a strain, or in the winter drops 
into his city club and over a cocktail gets into a 

[42] • 



HOW TO REST 



discussion about the market or the future of 
commercialism. 

A rest room in every house with the knowl- 
edge of how to use it would decrease the profits 
of the barrooms. The working girl needs such 
a place, the working woman somewhere she 
may go and be free to relax, the mother a hid- 
ing-spot where neither children nor husband can 
penetrate. 

The conditions for complete relaxation are 
about the same for both sexes and all ages. The 
room should be free from strong light — just a 
" dim religious light." Its hangings preferably 
light blue or dark green. It should be warm 
but not overheated. Outside air should be al- 
lowed free circulation. 

There should be no odors or scents notice- 
able in the room. Few understand the power- 
ful influence odors have upon many peo- 
ple and the fact that certain odors 
and scents will subconsciously affect every 
individual. 

Flowers must never remain in the room where 
you are to relax, however pleasing they may be. 
Remember, we are not relaxing for sensuous 
purposes as do the Orientals, nor are we just 

[43] 



HOW TO REST 



lazily lying down to dream of lotus lands and 
their caretakers, but to repair the wear and tear 
put upon the bodies of men and women of this 
progressive land. 

Relaxing room would be a better name than 
rest room, in order to make clear the distinction 
between a mere place to rest a fatigued body 
and a room to which you go to rest internal 
forces. 

Have you ever after lying down found your- 
self thinking over some little error or mistake 
you made during the day? Some little thing you 
said in slight anger ; some act or deed which now 
makes you fairly ashamed of yourself? Have 
you ever reacted some scene imaginary or other- 
wise, or thought what you ought to have done 
or said? 

If so, and if you are frank with yourself, you 
know it is so; you found that your hands were 
clenched, the muscles of your arm tense and 
contracted or the back stiffened by muscular 
efforts. Yet it has all come through no con- 
scious effort on your part. You did not volun- 
tarily contract the muscles of your arm, your 
back stiffened up before you knew it, and about 
all you do know of the strain you have been on 

[44] 



HOW TO REST 



while lying down is the feeling of fatigue when 
you arise. 

Your wrong thoughts sent their messages to 
your muscles. You subconsciously were ready 
to defend yourself from attack. Your muscles 
were stiffened from the same cause that makes 
a cat's back curve or a dog's hair stand " on 
end " when an enemy approaches. The ad- 
renals were excited and set out their exciting 
substance ready to supply any immediate loss 
should your muscles get into action. 

But of course the cause of the dog's or cat's 
condition is a natural cause — the inherent act of 
self-protection. The cause of your clenching 
your hands, stiffening muscles or hiding your 
head in the pillow and groaning with slight 
shame, is due to your own enemy in you. And 
it will beat you to exhaustion every time 
until you learn to keep the thought enemy 
away. 

Now, relaxation is just the opposite condi- 
tion of stiffening muscles while lying down — it 
means such a mental attitude that every organ 
in the body rests unaffected by exciting or 
stimulating thoughts. 

To learn to relax takes time, but its benefits 
[45] 



HOW TO REST 



in renewing nervous power and revivifying 
brain force, in strengthening the heart and the 
terminal blood vessels, are worth all the time 
end patience you possibly can give. 

One of the great benefits arising from the 
power to relax is the mastery over worry it 
gives you. Worry is a veritable poison, or 
rather it manufactures poison in the body. 
These poisons start degenerative changes in 
the arteries, and necessarily in those situations 
where " end arteries " — minute terminal vessels 
— are of vital importance; in the heart wall, in 
the brain, in the kidneys. 

In order to make the lessons clear let us take 
a few of the different individuals who need to 
relax daily. Each individual represents a type, 
and when one understands to which type he or 
she belongs the details are readily compre- 
hended and applied. 

Mrs. is the mother of three healthy chil- 
dren. Her husband is a well-to-do business man. 

But they had their early struggles and Mrs. 

did her own work for some years. She is forty- 
six years of age. Except for " always being 
tired out " she says she is a well woman. 

Now right at the start we see how little Mrs. 
[46] 



HOW TO REST 



understands what health means. " All 



tired out." Certainly such a state is not health — 
it is avoidable misery. She is " all tired out " be- 
cause all her married life she has been on a 
nervous strain. Her ductless glands have been 
active and ready to repair and revivify, so much 
of her fatigue has been offset by their action. 
' At her age there is rebellion in the repair ma- 
terial and glands. They do not act with their 
accustomed facility. She still keeps on, how- 
ever, in the same old way while there goes on a 
gradual lessening of recuperative powers. 

She tells you that she does lie down to rest 
" whenever she can find the time." " But there 
is always something or somebody to disturb 
me," she says. Upon questioning her we find 
that she always lies down with a fixed idea re- 
garding what she has to do at a certain time. 
In other words, she never relaxes; just lies 
down under a tension. 

On the day we started to teach her the prin- 
ciples of relaxation she spent the morning in the 
kitchen. She had a reliable cook, but the old 
idea that nothing would go right unless she was 
there to oversee and work was so fastened upon 
her that in spite of my instructions to keep 

[47] 



HOW TO REST 



away from all cooking odors she stayed with 
them. 

The reasons for my orders were that she had 
frequently told me the odors of cooking spoiled 
her appetite and were always with her — even in 
her dreams. 

Having relieved herself of all tight clothing, 
I had her lie down on her back, allowing her 
to take her own way in doing so. Taking hold 
of her arm I found the muscles on a slight ten- 
sion. Of this she was unconscious and also of 
the fact that her breathing was rapid for her 
position on her back. There was an appear- 
ance of mental strain and the nostrils were in 
movement. 

"Mrs. , what is worrying you?" 

" Why, nothing, Doctor — really nothing." 

" But there is. You are on a tension, mus- 
cles and mind. What are you trying to breathe 
away? " 

Then she laughed and replied : " It must be 
those fried onions. Whenever they are cook- 
ing they affect me disagreeably; I can smell 
them for two days after." 

So there we were, attempting to get a mental 
state fit to permit of a complete anatomical 

[48] 



HOW TO REST 



relaxation and having a very disturbing odor 
memory preventing it. I had her dress and get 
out into the fresh air for an hour, after making 
another appointment for the next day with the 
understanding she was to keep out of the kitchen 
in the morning and walk an hour before our ap- 
pointed time. 

Now came the trouble generally met with in 
trying to show women how to relax. If it was 
so much bother, if it took so much time, she 
could not do it. Why could I not just show her 
what I meant and she would, really she would, 
relax for an hour every day. It takes a lot of 
time and patience to convince a woman of the 
importance of getting the right mental state if 
she is to benefit by relaxation. Only by telling 
her the truth, that if she will try to cultivate a 
mental state which allows complete relaxation of 
the muscles and internal organs, wrinkles can 
be kept away, restful sleep at night obtained, 
and the body kept young and active, can you do 
much with the average woman today. 

She had reached that state where the chil- 
dren's presence frequently irritated her. She 
was of a sociable nature and attended to her 
social duties, but always returned home " all 

[49] 



HOW TO REST 



tired out " and feeling the effects of the strain. 
Life was becoming a strain instead of a pleasure. 
Friends and a physician told her it was all in- 
cidental to her age, but she did not fully be- 
lieve them. And she was right. The only age 
incident in the whole trouble was of an over- 
worked glandular system. It needed rest daily, 
and such rest as it needed never could be ob- 
tained until her mental activities permitted a 
complete relaxation. 

Upon our second attempt we made some 
progress. She had done her best to be left un- 
disturbed and had fitted up a " relaxing room " 
in the upper story. 

Having on only the lightest sort of clothing 
— a silk wrapper over some other kind of silky 
covering — she was told to take her most com- 
fortable position upon the lounge. I took her 
arm and raised it. There was a slight uncon- 
scious resistance. I explained this to her, but 
before she had time to ask any questions told 
her to breathe slowly — to reduce her respirations 
to twelve a minute (six respirations below the 
usual number). This for the time took her 
mind off herself and again upon lifting her arm 
I found no resistance. However, as she con- 

[50] 



HOW TO REST 



tinued to try to regulate her breathing there 
was noticed a tension of the abdominal muscles 
—a natural effect while learning the art of 
relaxation because there was conscious effort in 
the control of chest movement. 

I explained to her that in time she must learn 
how to drop down on the lounge without any 
muscular resistance — just as she would in a 
faint. 

Every bit of muscular resistance puts some 
kind of a strain upon the heart as well as upon 
the adrenals. The slightest effort of resistance 
means that a little fatigue poison is manufac- 
tured. Of course we cannot reduce this fatigue 
output to nothing — as long as there is life there 
will be this process going on. But the idea in 
relaxing is to produce repair material in excess 
of the fatigue, thereby storing up energy. 

Twice the amount of fatigue requires more 
than twice the amount of rest. Four times the 
amount of fatigue demands more than four 
times the amount of rest, until finally a state of 
excessive fatigue requires a rest period which 
may have to be prolonged indefinitely. 

The first essential to the accomplishment of 
benefit in relaxation is the ability to control 

[51] 



HOW TO REST 



thoughts and govern mental habits. One must 
absolutely be able to put aside for the hour the 
anxieties of the day, the appointments for the 
evening, the nagging and often useless " house- 
hold duties." In this sort of drilling the mind, 
you get the very best brain food. 

I am not quite certain whether the most 
benefit derived by relaxing the body comes from 
the mental training it compels or the rest it 
gives to the overworked vital organs and their 
stimulating juices. It really matters little, for 
the fact is that the whole human structure — 
brain and tissues — is benefited. 

Upon our second day of instruction with 

Mrs. I found that no matter how well 

she tried to follow my advice, there was some 
portion of her body on a tension. Sometimes it 
was her neck muscles, then her hands and fin- 
gers. If I succeeded in getting these relaxed 
there would be a rigidity of limbs. 

Knowing the trouble all came from her mental 
attitude I finally pulled it out of her. She 
could not get her mind off a little incident of 
the morning. Her husband was to bring an 
old friend to dinner and the cook had objected 
to the hour. 

[52] 



HOW TO REST 



Of such things are body poisons made. 

It is not necessary to go on. There were 
many sessions to get this woman's mind so it 
would toss away the unessentials of her life and 
cultivate the essentials ; to understand that when 
she wanted to feel that life really was worth 
living she must know how to live. 

She now can go to her relaxing room after a 
day's work and excitement, and dropping limp 
upon the lounge, reduce her breathing move- 
ments to ten a minute, her heartbeats to sixty- 
five a minute, and put aside all annoying or 
worrying thoughts. Her face has lost its former 
strained look; there is a fullness and supple- 
ness to her neck not there before, and she 
daily stores up energy for the future and emer- 
gencies. 

Medical science has made tremendous prog- 
ress in conquering many of the scourges and 
diseases which have so long afflicted civilization. 
Typhoid fever, smallpox, diphtheria, tubercu- 
losis, and most of the water- and air-born dis- 
eases are now under control. The death rate 
in these former scourges is reduced to almost 
negligible numbers in some communities, and 
before long to permit these infectious and con- 

[53] 



HOW TO REST 



tagious conditions to exist will be considered a 
crime. 

Yet the death rate from degenerative diseases 
— hardening of the arteries, apoplexy, kidney 
affections — is on the increase. And the deplor- 
able fact is that these deaths are among those 
who are, as far as years go, in the prime of life. 
Men and women are dying at the age of forty- 
five to fifty-five because they do not rest their 
hearts at proper periods and commence the care 
of the vital organs too late for their complete 
repair. 

Hardening of the arteries — arteriosclerosis — 
Bright's disease, diabetes, apoplexy, affections 
of the adrenals, have their starting-point in over- 
worked hearts. It is the emotions, the anxieties, 
the worries of life today which put the heart 
upon such injurious strain. Now, we cannot 
always, in fact seldom, avoid or control those 
many factors which make for anxiety and cause 
the worries of life, but we can, when we under- 
stand the matter, give the heart periods in which 
to repair from its overwork. 

A business man of forty and over is under 
great strain. His scheming, his constant watch- 
fulness, his energy all are concentrated upon one 

[54] 



HOW TO REST 



object — success. It makes little difference just 
what his business is, manufacturing, banking, 
commercial or salesmanship ; he must always " be 
on the job," for he is in a race and to let up 
means failure. 

All this means a steady pumping, pumping of 
blood to the brain, frequently at the expense of 
other organs. It is the hourly, daily and often 
nightly pressure which is doing the harm. The 
man who has been under an all-day mental and 
physical high gear feels it, knows it, at the end 
of the day. But what does such a man gener- 
ally do? Gets some other kind of heart-pump- 
ing stimulant. It may be an alcoholic " pick- 
me-up," it may be the excitement of a prize 
fight, perhaps a visit to a respectable dancing 
resort, or a harmless — morally speaking — joy 
ride. 

It matters little — the almost universal method 
of finding some form of relief from the daily 
pressure is only another form of heart stimula- 
tion. 

Play, pleasure, recreation we all must have, 
but there should be knowledge of just what is 
play and recreation and what is injurious stimu- 

[55] 



HOW TO REST 



lation, if the man is to avoid early degenerative 
disease. 

If your heart has been pumping away at a 
rate of seventy-five beats a minute during the 
active hours of your work, you can readily 
understand that just as soon as you can reduce 
it to seventy beats a minute you will be able to 
allow it to repair — to compensate for its over- 
time. Now, if you leave the office with the heart 
still running over its normal rate, take a cock- 
tail to brace you up; what are the consequences? 
A further pushing of its speed. If you rush 
to your dinner and fill your stomach with stuff 
which needs plenty of blood to aid in its diges- 
tion, again you call upon the heart and arteries 
to work overtime. The delicate arteries of the 
kidneys or brain are already fatigued, but do 
their best to take care of the overpressure put 
upon them. 

And what a lot of care and work they will 
do even when insulted day after day, night after 
night ! 

It does not mean that you must forego all the 
decent pleasures and fun in life in order to take 
care of a heart — and this of course means care of 
brain, kidneys, liver, arteries. 

[56] 



HOW TO REST 



After the day's excitement walk slowly in the 
open air for an hour. Then go to your room of 
seclusion, strip, take a sponge bath, a good rub, 
and putting on a bathrobe lie down and relax 
for one hour. Raise your left arm at right 
angle to your body and let it fall gently down 
to your side. Don't try in any manner to resist 
its movement. You must feel that it is soft, 
limp, without muscular life. Then count your 
breathing movements. Get your respirations 
down to at least sixteen or fourteen to the min- 
ute. Now go through the relaxing of the right 
arm. 

Gradually, day by day, you must learn to 
have every muscle of the body relieved from any 
sort of contraction while relaxing. To do this 
your mental state should be in a state of relaxa- 
tion. I fully appreciate the great difficulty 
in this matter in the average American man's 
make-up — for he will think of the business in 
hand or what he intends to get into his hand. 
But the only way out for him if he wishes to 
avoid the degenerative diseases is to rest his 
heart, and this heart never can be rested if it is 
kept on high gear through mental emotions or 
continued activity. 

[57] 



HOW TO REST 



A man who wishes to add years to his life 
must take an hour a day to add strength to his 
heart. 

The farmer, the mechanic, the motorman, are 
no exceptions to this rule. Everything and 
everybody is forced to speed up. Now, for 
every notch of speeding up there must be a 
notch for slowing down. This is as true of the 
human machine as of the purely mechanical 
engine. 

A machine which is too often sent to the re- 
pair shop soon becomes useless. A man who 
waits until he is " all in " and then goes to some 
of the " repair shops " for human machines 
never can have the certainty that there is not 
a pipe, valve or exhaust outlet weakened or 
practically useless. 

It is not a sign of weakening vigor to lie 
down and relax for an hour every day — it is a 
sign that you will outlive and outwork those 
who " go it while young." 



[58] 



CHAPTER IV 

WHY THE TIRED SHOPGIRL AND 
THE WEARIED WOMAN SHOULD 
REST 

It is not the hours of work or the standing 
that causes the shopgirl and saleswoman to be- 
come fatigued. Really there is but little true 
physical weariness in these workers, but there 
is almost always a state of feeling that the 
nerves were worked up to their limit for the day. 

Generally of pleasing disposition and good 
health when entering upon their field of work, 
most of these girls and women after a few 
years become chronically fatigued and their 
nervous sj r stems are in a constant state of un- 
rest. 

It is the grouchy shopper, the woman who 
lacks poise, the housekeeper worn out by her 
work, who rushes off to secure some bargain at 
a time when she should be resting or relaxing, 
that gets on the nerves of the saleswomen. 

Persons suffering from mild forms of hys- 
[59] 



HOW TO REST 



teria — the excitable woman — transmit much of 
their unstableness to those brought into contact 
with them. A state of nervousness, restlessness, 
indecision, has a decided effect upon others of 
the same sex. All these effects are subcon- 
sciously induced, but everyone of experience in 
these conditions recognizes the fact but does not 
know the psychologic reason. Much of the 
slang of the day is very expressive of the effects 
of certain forms of social and personal rela- 
tions. " She makes me tired " is an example. 
"Wouldn't she make you weary?" is another 
way of expressing the fact that a certain indi- 
vidual has left you feeling in some way affected. 

Let a woman of a grouchy disposition, one 
laced and pinched, with a cream puff and a 
glass of soda water in her stomach for the 
noon's nourishment, enter a shop with no de- 
cided idea of just what she wants but with the 
idea that she wants something, and her approach 
to a willing saleswoman means that some of her 
disposition will cause a strain upon the nature 
of the girl who waits upon her. 

It is inevitable — it is a law of psychology. If 
the saleswoman has trained and schooled her- 
self to be always outwardly calm and appar- 

[60] 



HOW TO REST 



ently unaffected by these unreasonable shoppers, 
the suppression of her desire to express her feel- 
ings works inwardly and means a peculiar form 
of psychic fatigue. Headaches, twitching of the 
muscles at night, sometimes a rabid desire to flee 
the work, a feeling of a tight band around the 
base of the skull, are some of the symptoms 
showing a suppressed state of the emotions dur- 
ing the day. Some of these girls have told me 
that if there was a " scream room," a padded 
room next the rest room in the big shops, where 
girls could go and have a good scream, they 
would return to the counter very much relieved. 
And psychologically speaking this form of re- 
lease and outlet would be of benefit — but of 
course in the end would work harm. 

A shopgirl or saleswoman can stand the fool- 
ish inquiries and impatience of a man shopper 
when this rare bird puts in appearance, will 
smile at his criticisms and willingly try to find 
what he wants or thinks he wants, and when he 
leaves, instead of being completely exhausted, 
finds herself much amused. 

This is due to a well-known psychologic fact 
— that except in those who have to live in close 
daily contact with each other — the opposite sex 

[61] 



HOW TO REST 



does not affect the female through his grouch, 
impatience or disagreeable manner. It is the 
eternal maternal instinct, the innate feeling that 
the male must be " mothered," that he is really 
only a child in certain matters, which saves the 
woman from nervous exhaustion when waiting 
upon a man. 

Of course this refers to the stranger and 
where there is complete indifference from the 
personal standpoint. It is a negative condition 
and arouses no antagonism. Women are never 
negative with each other. Seldom are they at- 
tuned to each other. They clash subconsciously, 
they reverberate disharmony, they always leave 
one less poised than before the meeting. 

With a great many women shopping is a 
false form of relaxation. It is a psychic spree 
whose fundamental cause is similar to that of 
the alcoholic spree. It is the old, old expression 
of trying to relieve a strain, to do something 
which will temporarily rest the nerves and brain. 
But it acts quite contrariwise, for it puts a fur- 
ther strain upon nerves and brain although 
for the time being it seems to bring surcease 
from the daily grind and monotony. 

If we could have some form of taboo which 

[62] 



HOW TO REST 



compelled every woman to remain at home and 
rest a few days before the bargain sale days 
and the holidays, it would redound to the 
benefit of both shoppers and saleswomen. 

We might adopt some form of the Fiji 
islanders' method of resting their women be- 
fore a great bargaining or shopping day. An- 
nually the Fijis await the swarming of a curious 
sea slug coming from the coral reefs on a single 
day of the year, usually in November, on the 
last quarter of the moon. Then all activities are 
suspended for four days, no labor may be done 
or any woman seen outside her house, in which 
she feasts and relaxes. There is a taboo on 
noise so strict that a forfeit is exacted for the 
crying of a child. At dawn of the fifth day 
men and boys scamper about, knocking with 
sticks at each door for the women to come out. 
Then the women go for the slugs as do our 
women for the " white goods " when the ad- 
vertisements knock at their mental doors. 

Youth and health are always optimistic, and 
this hope and gladness prevent those who toil 
daily under conditions which bring brain and 
nerve fatigue from taking up the matter of rest 
in time. After thirty years of age the woman 

[63] 



HOW TO REST 



still working cannot expect her recuperative 
powers to keep pace with her wear and tear. 
There is certain to be a gradual accumulation 
of fatigue effects and material, and in time this 
means a loss of curves, lack of complexion, less- 
ened energy and jovial spirits and the showing 
of age. 

All these woeful conditions are avoidable if 
the young woman will repair and store up en- 
ergy every day. 

No matter what your engagements are for the 
evening you should find an hour between your 
release from work and the evening pleasures 
in which to rest and relax. 

Go to your room and take off every stitch 
of clothing. Rub every inch of your skin with 
a rough towel. Rub from the extremities up- 
ward. Lie down on your back. Bring both 
arms up over your head and stretch them — 
fingers and wrists. Let the arms fall down, 
resting along the sides of the body. Lift the 
left leg until it is at right angle to your body. 
In that position bend the knee upon itself. 
Grasp the ankle and give two or three pulls 
upon it so that the heel strikes the body. Re- 
peat with the right leg. 

[64] 



HOW TO REST 



Now stretch each leg as far as you can — 
alternately. Bring arms and legs at right angles 
to the body — all at the same time — then let them 
fall limp into any position they want to take or 
do take. Remain as limp as possible and try 
to think of anything which pleases you so long 
as the thoughts are not upon anything which 
occurred during your working hours. This will 
require a lot of mental training, but can be ac- 
complished. The training is the very best pos- 
sible brain food in these conditions. 

After ten minutes in this attitude place your 
left hand upon the pit of the stomach — just 
below where the ribs divide — and press down. 
Not hard at first, but let the pressure be gradu- 
ally applied. This is right over the solar plexus, 
and you want to press hard enough to know that 
there is a bunch of nerves there. If you press 
hard enough you will know it. 

Release the pressure and take a deep, long 
breath. Hold the breath for a minute, then let 
it slowly out. 

Go through the same pressure movement on 
the pit of the stomach with the right hand and 
repeat the breathing movement. Do this ten 
times. Now train yourself to breathe deeply 

[65] 



HOW TO REST 



and slowly. It will take some days, if not 
weeks, to learn to do this effectively. But keep 
at it. 

These exercises have taken about thirty min- 
utes. For thirty minutes more lie quietly and 
be certain to have no thoughts which will cause 
a muscle to twitch or a frown to appear. Be- 
fore dressing to go out, drink two glasses of 
water. 

The woman who has been laced up all day, 
the middle-aged woman, the woman somewhat 
stout and the housekeeper who has been on her 
feet all day, should go through the above de- 
scribed exercises with the following additional 
details : 

When each limb is at right angle to the body 
— the leg, for example — it should be grasped 
just above the ankle and tightly squeezing the 
hand around it, you should push the flesh ahead. 
That is, with pressure strokes carry the blood 
along the limb up to the knee. Grasp one wrist 
by the other hand — arm extended at right angle 
to the body — and go through the same stroking 
pressure right up to the armpit. 

Repeat this exercise with all four limbs and 
keep up the exercise for fully ten minutes. 

[66] 



HOW TO REST 



In learning to relax you will do well in the 
beginning to practice the dropping of the limbs 
from their extended position, the art consisting 
in permitting them to go their own way. You 
must make no conscious resistance. 

In one particular way the girl and woman out 
in the world uses up a tremendous amount of 
nervous energy which she can easily save. It is 
the way she uses her voice. Half the nervous 
force she uses in speaking and calling, in ex- 
pressing her feelings and opinions, could be 
kept in storage and brought out at times when 
it is really needed. All these little matters make 
for health, beauty and active mentality. 

Whether you are using the vocal muscles in 
speaking or the arm muscles in shoveling coal, 
just so much nervous energy has to be called 
forth in proportion to the physical efforts. If 
you speak gently, quietly, you do not need that 
nervous output you have to call upon when you 
shout or excitedly vociferate your feelings. I 
believe one of the principal causes for telephone 
operators being less nervous and better poised 
than the average girl worker is due to the voice 
training they have to undergo. I do not mean 
voice training in the sense of elocution or sing- 
le ] 



HOW TO REST 



ing, but the training in slow, distinct enuncia- 
tion, the avoidance of excitement under the most 
exasperating conditions, and the ever smooth, 
controlled cadence. It is a training in nervous 
control and brain action. 

The voice at all times tells of the mental and 
nervous state of the individual. It can be so 
used as to destroy any chance of obtaining a 
nervous reserve; it can be so used as to make for 
nervous strength and brain health. 

The harsh voices and strident tones heard 
among American girls and women are evi- 
dences of injurious neglect in training them 
in early life in the proper use of the nose in 
speaking. 

Incidentally, this condition accounts for some 
of the nervousness so frequent in girls and 
young women, for there is a direct relation be- 
tween the olfactory bulbs — the smelling organs 
— and the general nervous system. 

As these olfactory bulbs are situated in the 
upper part of the nose, any injury — and this 
means mucus and dust — to the membrane of 
the nasal passages is bound to irritate these 
bulbs. The wrong use of the nose in speaking 
— and this is almost universal in America — not 

[68] 



HOW TO REST 



only causes this irritation, but, furthermore, is 
a tremendous strain upon the nervous system. 

Overuse and wrong use of the voice in speak- 
ing, especially where the emotions are constantly 
excited, is almost always the way to bring about 
a state of nervous exhaustion. The breakdown 
may not be demonstrated in any of those forms 
we usually associate with nervousness, but is 
caused by disturbance of blood conditions. 

Many mothers are affected through excited 
calling to their children, through a mistaken idea 
that loud-voiced objurgations make a good im- 
pression, through lack of patience to quietly 
go to the child and in a subdued tone advise and 
instruct. I have heard a mother calling out to 
her children who were in the yard and yelling 
at them later when they were in the attic play- 
ing, while she was standing at the foot of the 
stairs or at the back door. Then later on, after 
weeks or months of this sort of nervous expendi- 
ture, go to the doctor and ask him to give her 
" something for her nerves." 

Nothing is so telltale of breeding and train- 
ing as the tone, timbre and use of the voice — 
especially the female voice. Temperament, 
disposition and the power of attraction are 

[69] 



HOW TO REST 



told by the nature and use of the , voice in 
women. 

The true tone of the voice is the most effective 
call the girl has for proper mating and universal 
admiration. 

The nose, aside from its use to moisten the air 
we breathe, controls the resonators, the sound- 
ing-boards of the voice. These are closely con- 
nected with the nasal cavities. 

The first thing to do in commencing to get 
a voice which will delight and attract is to see 
that all the nasal cavities are kept clean and 
clear of foul air. Just because this is generally 
neglected is why we have those unpleasant rasp- 
ing nose voices which so long have stamped 
American men and women. 

Catarrh has been blamed for this brassy and 
penetrating voice, but if the" r nasal cavities had 
been watched and cared for, catarrh would hot 
be a cause. 

Catarrh simply means dirt-germ accumula- 
tion — in the delicate mucous membrane and 
among the tiny hair-like things in the mem- 
brane, which nature placed there for the pur- 
pose of protecting the sounding-boards. 

An important fact for girls and women who 
[70] 



HOW TO REST 



wish to be healthful and beautiful to know is 
that clean nasal passages mean clear, bright 
eyes. 

Another important fact to realize is that no 
matter how careful you are in the details of 
cleanliness and bathing, the soot of the cities, 
the thick air of subways, the mixed — fearfully 
mixed — atmosphere of shops and offices, and in 
the country the motor-stirred dirt of the roads, 
are the materials which get into the upper air 
passages and remain there unless you know how 
to clean out nasal passages. 

Then, to avoid unaccountable nervousness in 
the young woman, it is absolutely necessary that 
the olfactory bulbs should be free from all and 
any irritation. 

Again, these scent detectors become more or 
less lazy or loaf on their job when surrounded by 
mucus and dust. This means that you are not 
warned of foul air until you are filled with it 
and headaches, depression, general discomfort 
and inability to do good work are the inevitable 
result. 

For the same reason the use of strong scents 
or penetrating perfumes should be avoided, be- 
cause in time they lower the sensitiveness of 

[71] 



HOW TO REST 



the olfactory bulbs. Any girl who uses musk — 
or any strong perfume — is on the way to ex- 
treme nervousness before she reaches thirty 
years of age. It is a physiological effect which 
does the harm, and few know or are told that 
quite frequently the young woman who goes 
to the doctor for advice for a distressing form 
of nervousness has innocently and ignorantly 
brought the trouble upon herself by the steady 
use of a very harmful scent stimulant. 

The wise woman will surround herself only 
with the more delicate scents, not merely be- 
cause they are usually more pleasing and show 
good breeding, but because they are best for 
her health. But the sweetest scent in all nature 
is that emanating from a healthy skin, clean 
teeth and nasal passages free from any accumu- 
lation of dust or dirt. 

To commence to train the voice for speaking 
in tones which at once display refinement and 
femaleness of the highest type, one starts with 
the care of the nose. 

After your cold plunge or sponge bath in 
the morning, snort out through the nose, rather 
forcibly, with the head bent slightly forward, 
the accumulations of the night. Now take a 

[72] 



HOW TO REST 



piece of soft linen, moisten in warm water — not 
hot water — and twisting it into a sort of probe, 
gently insert up each nostril. 

Standing with no tight clothing to confine the 
upper body, breathe slowly through the nostrils. 
Be sure to keep the mouth closed. 1 Fill the 
lungs with fresh air — not necessarily cold air. 
Hold your breath for twenty seconds, then let 
it out slowly through the nose. 

Repeat this exercise eight or ten times. Go 
through the same procedure at night time. 

These exercises clean the sounding-boards 
and start a fresh supply of oxygen to the tiny 
nerve and blood cells, so that when you properly 
send your words over the nasal resonators 
they come out clearly and tunefully. Never use 
a nasal spray or salt solutions of any kind. 
Remember this advice, and also the fact that for 
almost all kinds of nervousness there is a cause 
in your habits or ignorance of just what you 
are doing in little matters to use up nervous 
forces. Just as sure as there are causes in your 
habits or neglect of certain details in living 
and thinking, which bring you to a nervous state 

1 For complete details of breathing exercises see Breathe and Be 
Well. Clode, pub. 

[73] 



HOW TO REST 



or mental depression and inability to concen- 
trate, there are in your body remedies for these 
states. Drugs, medicines, any external or in- 
ternal strangers and strange things to your 
delicate physiologic forces, do harm. You can 
have a physiological rebirth just as surely as you 
can have a spiritual rebirth. You do not take 
a bottle of Soul Tonic to cure a sick conscience; 
neither should you take a bottle of vegetable or 
mineral stuff to cure a nervous headache caused 
by angry shouting and emotional sputterings 
of harsh words. 

But to get back to our nose cleaning. You 
have only so far put the voice reproducer in a 
fit condition. To cultivate the voice itself re- 
quires patience and practice, but is well worth 
the trouble to every girl and woman; for after 
all has been done to make a pleasing physical 
appearance, if the voice is not also pleasing a 
girl loses much of all her other charms. 

The lack of early training must be overcome 
and the habit of placing your tones, muscle 
development of throat organs, and learning to 
cease calling or shouting must be considered. 

As an example of just what I mean: A girl 
in a shop who wishes to speak to another girl 

[74] 



HOW TO REST 



will, as a rule, call to her from a distance. She 
will do the same on the street or during lunch 
hour — anywhere it is permitted. At home she 
will call out to her mother or yell at her 
brother. 

No young woman who wishes to appear re- 
fined or well-bred will ever call out or use her 
voice so it passes beyond her intended hearer in 
ordinary social or business conversation. 

The way to do is this: When you have some- 
thing to say or tell, go slowly to the one you 
wish to speak to, taking a few deep breaths on 
the way. Then speak slowly and note the tones. 
Never forget that the tone and sweetness of the 
voice is a mark of character. 

I know a young woman employed in a large 
department store who became extremely nerv- 
ous. She commenced to lose flesh and became 
pale. Headaches and backaches, sore throat and 
a general depression were becoming a daily and 
dreaded condition. Her voice gave me a hint as 
to the trouble. 

It was harsh, strident, and even in speaking 
to me she would shout. She was using up 
nervous force every minute of her life by her 
shouting and calling out to her friends and 

[75] 



HOW TO REST 



comrades. To teach her how to use her voice 
and save energy, to get back health, I had her 
purchase several good phonograph records of 
recitations by celebrated actresses. She was to 
try to reproduce the tones and timbre, the ac- 
centuation, the deliberation and the calmness of 
these poised speakers. In two months there 
was a most remarkable change in her whole at- 
titude — physically, mentally. She now seldom 
raises her voice above a natural tone, and speak- 
ing is no effort or strain upon the nervous sys- 
tem, but a real health-giving exercise. 

Breathing slowly while thinking of your 
words dilates the nostrils and the sounding- 
boards send out clear, resonant words. If your 
ears or thoughts have received messages which 
bring a scowl, don't attempt to speak until you 
have ceased to scowl or frown — not if you want 
to be free from wrinkles at fifty-five years of 
age. 

The reason is that all mean, petty, jealous or 
suspicious thoughts affect the tiny muscles of 
the face and cause a partial closing of the nos- 
trils. This gives the words a sound as though 
coming from a cracked bell. 

Then again, words spoken in anger or coming 

[76] 



HOW TO REST 



in hurried breaths cause disturbance in the thy- 
roid gland and this reacts upon the adrenal 
glands. Now, one brings about a change in the 
quality of the blood and the other in its pres- 
sure. Hence the nervous stability is affected, 
the tiny blood vessels in the upper voice resona- 
tors are engorged and a harsh voice results. 

The human speech can be so used as to be a 
delight. Also it can be so abused as to be a 
repelling thing. 

And the great difference — the big and impor- 
tant difference to every girl and woman — is that 
of the beauty of the face retained through cor- 
rect voicing. 

If you wish to have an attractive face which 
will last up to good old age, well rounded; 
smiling, pink lips; dimples, shapely neck, full 
bosom, you must use the muscles of face and 
throat the way nature intended them to be used 
— for understandable and pleasing speech. 

No woman is all woman who is not subject 
to emotions. Now, emotions have a most power- 
ful effect upon voice production. If you do not 
train yourself to control — not suppress — your 
emotions, then the voice in anger, fear or jeal- 
ousy will run riot with your feelings and never 

[77] 



HOW TO REST 



can you under these conditions obtain a pleasing 
voice or retain that facial beauty which it is 
your right to possess and retain. 

Let your voice show your emotions, but let 
them be so carefully controlled that your voice 
never will be harsh and repellent. 

This is the sort of schooling which nourishes 
nerves and feeds the brain. 



[78] 



CHAPTER V 

INJURIOUS SELF-FEAR AND HOW 
TO DRIVE IT OUT 

If you are running a motor car over an un- 
known road and every small stone or little rut 
looms up to your imagination as danger spots; 
if you hold the wheel with fear always by your 
side, you are certain to so interrupt the smooth 
going of the car and engine as to finally injure 
them both. The sudden application of breaks, 
the useless changing of speeds and gears, the 
quick twists of steering gear and front wheels, 
soon put the whole car into the unreliable class. 

Now, if you have sitting alongside or back of 
you a nervous and timid person constantly lean- 
ing over to you and cautioning or pointing out 
some little stone, a person who fairly sweats 
useless fear, your nerves are going to be af- 
fected, your self-confidence weakened, your 
ability to make the journey along an ordinary 
road decidedly lessened, and when the journey 

[79] 



HOW TO REST 



is finally ended car, engine and driver are 
equally in a state of exhaustion. 

Just so is it fear which prevents many men 
and women from going along on life's road 
smoothly and without injury to their running 
parts — nerves and brain. 

It is not physical fear, not personal cow- 
ardice; not mere timidity that is at the bottom 
of so many who have not the will to do. They 
have the wish to do, the potential power to do, 
but are always held back by the fear of " What 
will the people say? " 

In spite of our fatuous impression that we 
are completely free from the superstitions 
of our savage forebears, we still retain many of 
the taboos of these ancestors. Especially true 
is this in the small towns and villages. Here a 
state of tribal inhibitions always may be found. 
Every little act is governed by what the neigh- 
bors will say. The individuals of the communi- 
ties are kept from going their individual ways 
because there is a group or groups to always 
point out the imaginary stones or ruts ahead. 
If this was merely a social condition, if it af- 
fected only the progress of communities, to 
expose or explain it here would be a waste of 

[80] 



HOW TO REST 



the reader's time. But it is a condition which 
has and is affecting the mental and physical 
health of many persons throughout the land, and 
so it is necessary to point out the causes and 
the remedies. No one can get out of himself 
or herself the powers or talents in them, until 
they have thrown off the fear of what people 
will say or think about them and their ambi- 
tions. 

Nothing but exhausted nerves and a tired 
brain can be the result of constant repression. 
The man or woman who is constantly desirous 
of doing something worth-while but does not do 
it; the individual who knows he or she is living 
a lie because they are doing what the members 
of the village or community think they should 
do, is on the way to nervous exhaustion and 
physical weariness — and, incidentally, patent 
medicines. 

Repression of normal impulses reacts upon 
the whole physiological system aside from its 
injurious mental effects. Constipation results 
in autointoxication. Detoxication can never be 
fully brought about by eliminating substances 
as long as the fundamental causes — the sup- 
pressed desires — exist. 

[81] 



HOW TO REST 



still working cannot expect her recuperative 
powers to keep pace with her wear and tear. 
There is certain to be a gradual accumulation 
of fatigue effects and material, and in time this 
means a loss of curves, lack of complexion, less- 
ened energy and jovial spirits and the showing 
of age. 

All these woeful conditions are avoidable if 
the young woman will repair and store up en- 
ergy every day. 

No matter what your engagements are for the 
evening you should find an hour between your 
release from work and the evening pleasures 
in which to rest and relax. 

Go to your room and take off every stitch 
of clothing. Rub every inch of your skin with 
a rough towel. Rub from the extremities up- 
ward. Lie down on your back. Bring both 
arms up over your head and stretch them — 
fingers and wrists. Let the arms fall down, 
resting along the sides of the body. Lift the 
left leg until it is at right angle to your body. 
In that position bend the knee upon itself. 
Grasp the ankle and give two or three pulls 
upon it so that the heel strikes the body. Re- 
peat with the right leg. 

[ 64 ] 



HOW TO REST 



Now stretch each leg as far as you can — 
alternately. Bring arms and legs at right angles 
to the body — all at the same time — then let them 
fall limp into any position they want to take or 
do take. Remain as limp as possible and try 
to think of anything which pleases you so long 
as the thoughts are not upon anything which 
occurred during your working hours. This will 
require a lot of mental training, but can be ac- 
complished. The training is the very best pos- 
sible brain food in these conditions. 

After ten minutes in this attitude place your 
left hand upon the pit of the stomach — just 
below where the ribs divide — and press down. 
Not hard at first, but let the pressure be gradu- 
ally applied. This is right over the solar plexus, 
and you want to press hard enough to know that 
there is a bunch of nerves there. If you press 
hard enough you will know it. 

Release the pressure and take a deep, long 
breath. Hold the breath for a minute, then let 
it slowly out. 

Go through the same pressure movement on 
the pit of the stomach with the right hand and 
repeat the breathing movement. Do this ten 
times. Now train yourself to breathe deeply 

[65] 



HOW TO REST 



and slowly. It will take some days, if not 
weeks, to learn to do this effectively. But keep 
at it. 

These exercises have taken about thirty min- 
utes. For thirty minutes more lie quietly and 
be certain to have no thoughts which will cause 
a muscle to twitch or a frown to appear. Be- 
fore dressing to go out, drink two glasses of 
water. 

The woman who has been laced up all day, 
the middle-aged woman, the woman somewhat 
stout and the housekeeper who has been on her 
feet all day, should go through the above de- 
scribed exercises with the following additional 
details : 

When each limb is at right angle to the body 
— the leg, for example — it should be grasped 
just above the ankle and tightly squeezing the 
hand around it, you should push the flesh ahead. 
That is, with pressure strokes carry the blood 
along the limb up to the knee. Grasp one wrist 
by the other hand — arm extended at right angle 
to the body — and go through the same stroking 
pressure right up to the armpit. 

Repeat this exercise with all four limbs and 
keep up the exercise for fully ten minutes. 

[66] 



HOW TO REST 



In learning to relax you will do well in the 
beginning to practice the dropping of the limbs 
from their extended position, the art consisting 
in permitting them to go their own way. You 
must make no conscious resistance. 

In one particular way the girl and woman out 
in the world uses up a tremendous amount of 
nervous energy which she can easily save. It is 
the way she uses her voice. Half the nervous 
force she uses in speaking and calling, in ex- 
pressing her feelings and opinions, could be 
kept in storage and brought out at times when 
it is really needed. All these little matters make 
for health, beauty and active mentality. 

Whether you are using the vocal muscles in 
speaking or the arm muscles in shoveling coal, 
just so much nervous energy has to be called 
forth in proportion to the physical efforts. If 
you speak gently, quietly, you do not need that 
nervous output you have to call upon when you 
shout or excitedly vociferate your feelings. I 
believe one of the principal causes for telephone 
operators being less nervous and better poised 
than the average girl worker is due to the voice 
training they have to undergo. I do not mean 
voice training in the sense of elocution or sing- 

[67] 



HOW TO REST 



ing, but the training in slow, distinct enuncia- 
tion, the avoidance of excitement under the most 
exasperating conditions, and the ever smooth, 
controlled cadence. It is a training in nervous 
control and brain action. 

The voice at all times tells of the mental and 
nervous state of the individual. It can be so 
used as to destroy any chance of obtaining a 
nervous reserve ; it can be so used as to make for 
nervous strength and brain health. 

The harsh voices and strident tones heard 
among American girls and women are evi- 
dences of injurious neglect in training them 
in early life in the proper use of the nose in 
speaking. 

Incidentally, this condition accounts for some 
of the nervousness so frequent in girls and 
young women, for there is a direct relation be- 
tween the olfactory bulbs — the smelling organs 
— and the general nervous system. 

As these olfactory bulbs are situated in the 
upper part of the nose, any injury — and this 
means mucus and dust — to the membrane of 
the nasal passages is bound to irritate these 
bulbs. The wrong use of the nose in speaking 
— and this is almost universal in America — not 

[68] 



HOW TO REST 



only causes this irritation, but, furthermore, is 
a tremendous strain upon the nervous system. 

Overuse and wrong use of the voice in speak- 
ing, especially where the emotions are constantly 
excited, is almost always the way to bring about 
a state of nervous exhaustion. The breakdown 
may not be demonstrated in any of those forms 
we usually associate with nervousness, but is 
caused by disturbance of blood conditions. 

Many mothers are affected through excited 
calling to their children, through a mistaken idea 
that loud-voiced objurgations make a good im- 
pression, through lack of patience to quietly 
go to the child and in a subdued tone advise and 
instruct. I have heard a mother calling out to 
her children who were in the yard and yelling 
at them later when they were in the attic play- 
ing, while she was standing at the foot of the 
stairs or at the back door. Then later on, after 
weeks or months of this sort of nervous expendi- 
ture, go to the doctor and ask him to give her 
" something for her nerves.'' 

Nothing is so telltale of breeding and train- 
ing as the tone, timbre and use of the voice — 
especially the female voice. Temperament, 
disposition and the power of attraction are 

[69] 



HOW TO REST 



told by the nature and use of the , voice in 
women. 

The true tone of the voice is the most effective 
call the girl has for proper mating and universal 
admiration. 

The nose, aside from its use to moisten the air 
we breathe, controls the resonators, the sound- 
ing-boards of the voice. These are closely con- 
nected with the nasal cavities. 

The first thing to do in commencing to get 
a voice which will delight and attract is to see 
that all the nasal cavities are kept clean and 
clear of foul air. Just because this is generally 
neglected is why we have those unpleasant rasp- 
ing nose voices which so long have stamped 
American men and women. 

Catarrh has been blamed for this brassy and 
penetrating voice, but if the 'nasal cavities had 
been watched and cared for, catarrh would not 
be a cause. 

Catarrh simply means dirt-germ accumula- 
tion — in the delicate mucous membrane and 
among the tiny hair-like things in the mem- 
brane, which nature placed there for the pur- 
pose of protecting the sounding-boards. 

An important fact for girls and women who 

[70] 



HOW TO REST 



wish to be healthful and beautiful to know is 
that clean nasal passages mean clear, bright 
eyes. 

Another important fact to realize is that no 
matter how careful you are in the details of 
cleanliness and bathing, the soot of the cities, 
the thick air of subways, the mixed — fearfully 
mixed — atmosphere of shops and offices, and in 
the country the motor-stirred dirt of the roads, 
are the materials which get into the upper air 
passages and remain there unless you know how 
to clean out nasal passages. 

Then, to avoid unaccountable nervousness in 
the young woman, it is absolutely necessary that 
the olfactory bulbs should be free from all and 
any irritation. 

Again, these scent detectors become more or 
less lazy or loaf on their j ob when surrounded by 
mucus and dust. This means that you are not 
warned of foul air until you are filled with it 
and headaches, depression, general discomfort 
and inability to do good work are the inevitable 
result. 

For the same reason the use of strong scents 
or penetrating perfumes should be avoided, be- 
cause in time they lower the sensitiveness of 

[71] 



HOW TO REST 



the olfactory bulbs. Any girl who uses musk — 
or any strong perfume — is on the way to ex- 
treme nervousness before she reaches thirty 
years of age. It is a physiological effect which 
does the harm, and few know or are told that 
quite frequently the young woman who goes 
to the doctor for advice for a distressing form 
of nervousness has innocently and ignorantly 
brought the trouble upon herself by the steady 
use of a very harmful scent stimulant. 

The wise woman will surround herself only 
with the more delicate scents, not merely be- 
cause they are usually more pleasing and show 
good breeding, but because they are best for 
her health. But the sweetest scent in all nature 
is that emanating from a healthy skin, clean 
teeth and nasal passages free from any accumu- 
lation of dust or dirt. 

To commence to train the voice for speaking 
in tones which at once display refinement and 
femaleness of the highest type, one starts with 
the care of the nose. 

After your cold plunge or sponge bath in 
the morning, snort out through the nose, rather 
forcibly, with the head bent slightly forward, 
the accumulations of the night. Now take a 

[72] 



HOW TO REST 



piece of soft linen, moisten in warm water — not 
hot water — and twisting it into a sort of probe, 
gently insert up each nostril. 

Standing with no tight clothing to confine the 
upper body, breathe slowly through the nostrils. 
Be sure to keep the mouth closed. 1 Fill the 
lungs with fresh air — not necessarily cold air. 
Hold your breath for twenty seconds, then let 
it out slowly through the nose. 

Repeat this exercise eight or ten times. Go 
through the same procedure at night time. 

These exercises clean the sounding-boards 
and start a fresh supply of oxygen to the tiny 
nerve and blood cells, so that when you properly 
send your words over the nasal resonators 
they come out clearly and tunefully. Never use 
a nasal spray or salt solutions of any kind. 
Remember this advice, and also the fact that for 
almost all kinds of nervousness there is a cause 
in your habits or ignorance of just what you 
are doing in little matters to use up nervous 
forces. Just as sure as there are causes in your 
habits or neglect of certain details in living 
and thinking, which bring you to a nervous state 



1 For complete details of breathing exercises see Breathe and Be 
Well. Clode, pub. 

[73] 



HOW TO REST 



or mental depression and inability to concen- 
trate, there are in your body remedies for these 
states. Drugs, medicines, any external or in- 
ternal strangers and strange things to your 
delicate physiologic forces, do harm. You can 
have a physiological rebirth just as surely as you 
can have a spiritual rebirth. You do not take 
a bottle of Soul Tonic to cure a sick conscience; 
neither should you take a bottle of vegetable or 
mineral stuff to cure a nervous headache caused 
by angry shouting and emotional sputterings 
of harsh words. 

But to get back to our nose cleaning. You 
have only so far put the voice reproducer in a 
fit condition. To cultivate the voice itself re- 
quires patience and practice, but is well worth 
the trouble to every girl and woman; for after 
all has been done to make a pleasing physical 
appearance, if the voice is not also pleasing a 
girl loses much of all her other charms. 

The lack of early training must be overcome 
and the habit of placing your tones, muscle 
development of throat organs, and learning to 
cease calling or shouting must be considered. 

As an example of just what I mean: A girl 
in a shop who wishes to speak to another girl 

[74] 



HOW TO REST 



will, as a rule, call to her from a distance. She 
will do the same on the street or during lunch 
hour — anywhere it is permitted. At home she 
will call out to her mother or yell at her 
brother. 

]S T o young woman who wishes to appear re- 
fined or well-bred will ever call out or use her 
voice so it passes beyond her intended hearer in 
ordinary social or business conversation. 

The way to do is this: When you have some- 
thing to say or tell, go slowly to the one you 
wish to speak to, taking a few deep breaths on 
the way. Then speak slowly and note the tones. 
Xever forget that the tone and sweetness of the 
voice is a mark of character. 

I know a young woman employed in a large 
department store who became extremely nerv- 
ous. She commenced to lose flesh and became 
pale. Headaches and backaches, sore throat and 
a general depression were becoming a daily and 
dreaded condition. Her voice gave me a hint as 
to the trouble. 

It was harsh, strident, and even in speaking 
to me she would shout. She was using up 
nervous force every minute of her life by her 
shouting and calling out to her friends and 

[75] 



HOW TO REST 



comrades. To teach her how to use her voice 
and save energy, to get back health, I had her 
purchase several good phonograph records of 
recitations by celebrated actresses. She was to 
try to reproduce the tones and timbre, the ac- 
centuation, the deliberation and the calmness of 
these poised speakers. In two months there 
was a most remarkable change in her whole at- 
titude — physically, mentally. She now seldom 
raises her voice above a natural tone, and speak- 
ing is no effort or strain upon the nervous sys- 
tem, but a real health-giving exercise. 

Breathing slowly while thinking of your 
words dilates the nostrils and the sounding- 
boards send out clear, resonant words. If your 
ears or thoughts have received messages which 
bring a scowl, don't attempt to speak until you 
have ceased to scowl or frown — not if you want 
to be free from wrinkles at fifty-five years of 
age. 

The reason is that all mean, petty, jealous or 
suspicious thoughts affect the tiny muscles of 
the face and cause a partial closing of the nos- 
trils. This gives the words a sound as though 
coming from a cracked bell. 

Then again, words spoken in anger or coming 

[76] 



HOW TO REST 



in hurried breaths cause disturbance in the thy- 
roid gland and this reacts upon the adrenal 
glands. Now, one brings about a change in the 
quality of the blood and the other in its pres- 
sure. Hence the nervous stability is affected, 
the tiny blood vessels in the upper voice resona- 
tors are engorged and a harsh voice results. 

The human speech can be so used as to be a 
delight. Also it can be so abused as to be a 
repelling thing. 

And the great difference — the big and impor- 
tant difference to every girl and woman — is that 
of the beauty of the face retained through cor- 
rect voicing. 

If you wish to have an attractive face which 
will last up to good old age, well rounded; 
smiling, pink lips; dimples, shapely neck, full 
bosom, you must use the muscles of face and 
throat the way nature intended them to be used 
— for understandable and pleasing speech. 

No woman is all woman who is not subject 
to emotions. Now, emotions have a most power- 
ful effect upon voice production. If you do not 
train yourself to control — not suppress — your 
emotions, then the voice in anger, fear or jeal- 
ousy will run riot with your feelings and never 

[77] 



HOW TO REST 



can you under these conditions obtain a pleasing 
voice or retain that facial beauty which it is 
your right to possess and retain. 

Let your voice show your emotions, but let 
them be so carefully controlled that your voice 
never will be harsh and repellent. 

This is the sort of schooling which nourishes 
nerves and feeds the brain. 



[78] 



CHAPTER V 

INJURIOUS SELF-FEAR AND HOW 
TO DRIVE IT OUT 

If you are running a motor car over an un- 
known road and every small stone or little rut 
looms up to your imagination as danger spots; 
if you hold the wheel with fear always by your 
side, you are certain to so interrupt the smooth 
going of the car and engine as to finally injure 
them both. The sudden application of breaks, 
the useless changing of speeds and gears, the 
quick twists of steering gear and front wheels, 
soon put the whole car into the unreliable class. 

Now, if you have sitting alongside or back of 
you a nervous and timid person constantly lean- 
ing over to you and cautioning or pointing out 
some little stone, a person who fairly sweats 
useless fear, your nerves are going to be af- 
fected, your self-confidence weakened, your 
ability to make the journey along an ordinary 
road decidedly lessened, and when the journey 

[79] 



HOW TO REST 



is finally ended car, engine and driver are 
equally in a state of exhaustion. 

Just so is it fear which prevents many men 
and women from going along on life's road 
smoothly and without injury to their running 
parts — nerves and brain. 

It is not physical fear, not personal cow- 
ardice; not mere timidity that is at the bottom 
of so many who have not the will to do. They 
have the wish to do, the potential power to do, 
but are always held back by the fear of " What 
will the people say?" 

In spite of our fatuous impression that we 
are completely free from the superstitions 
of our savage forebears, we still retain many of 
the taboos of these ancestors. Especially true 
is this in the small towns and villages. Here a 
state of tribal inhibitions always may be found. 
Every little act is governed by what the neigh- 
bors will say. The individuals of the communi- 
ties are kept from going their individual ways 
because there is a group or groups to always 
point out the imaginary stones or ruts ahead. 
If this was merely a social condition, if it af- 
fected only the progress of communities, to 
expose or explain it here would be a waste of 

[80] 



HOW TO REST 



the reader's time. But it is a condition which 
has and is affecting the mental and physical 
health of many persons throughout the land, and 
so it is necessary to point out the causes and 
the remedies. No one can get out of himself 
or herself the powers or talents in them, until 
they have thrown off the fear of what people 
will say or think about them and their ambi- 
tions. 

Nothing but exhausted nerves and a tired 
brain can be the result of constant repression. 
The man or woman who is constantly desirous 
of doing something worth-while but does not do 
it; the individual who knows he or she is living 
a lie because they are doing what the members 
of the village or community think they should 
do, is on the way to nervous exhaustion and 
physical weariness — and, incidentally, patent 
medicines. 

Repression of normal impulses reacts upon 
the whole physiological system aside from its 
injurious mental effects. Constipation results 
in autointoxication. Detoxication can never be 
fully brought about by eliminating substances 
as long as the fundamental causes — the sup- 
pressed desires — exist. 

[81] 



HOW TO REST 



The person who wants to do but fears to do 
on account of community criticism is having 
the brakes applied as he tries to go along 
his safe and smooth road. There are mental 
jolts, physical strains; nervous energy misap- 
plied. 

I have just seen a pitiable wreck of a minis- 
ter. He is only thirty-five years of age. His 
nerves are ragged, his mind unsettled, his physi- 
cal condition bad. For ten years he has been 
located in a small New England town. Here 
he realized there was much to do in a missionary 
way. The town was a hive of hypocrisy. Im- 
morality among the young people was notorious, 
indifference among the men of the community 
was a cemented thing, fear of the truth among 
the wives and mothers a deep-rooted and in- 
curable state. 

Every move this conscientious man made to 
improve matters was objected to. Each time he 
preached a sermon upon the necessity of taking 
hold of the facts and facing them brought hints 
and finally threats of dismissal. Discouraged, 
but still believing he had work to do for the 
benefit of humanity, he secured another pas- 
torate. 

[82] 



HOW TO REST 



In this new village he found things worse 
than in the one he had left. The men and 
women of this place wanted him to attend the 
church suppers, get up the picnics, gather the 
; young people to mush entertainments and be 
a general talker of Old Testament ideas. 

His will to do was so repressed that its reac- 
tion gradually brought him to be a man afraid 
■ of himself. 

This case is merely an example of the injury 
which will certainly occur to everyone who will 
I not put aside the fear of ignorant opinion and 
strike out for himself — or herself. 

Remember this fact: If you have an ambition 
pushing you on, if you feel impulses to do that 
which you believe will be the best for you, if you 
chafe under the brakes of village or neighbor- 
hood opinion, you are on the way to nervous 
exhaustion, brain weariness and ultimate failure. 
Opinions of the crowd never should avail against 
your honest and innate ideas. You must help 
yourself in this world. Nature has so ordered it. 
Never can you possess a forcible brain and have 
the physical strength to uphold it, unless you 
work out your own problems. 

Now let us take the case of this unfortunate 
[83] 



HOW TO REST 



minister and see how you can take off the brakes 
and handle your own car — the one which has to 
run by the power of your will. 

He had to be shown that the fault was mostly 
his own. He had tried to work under a fixed 
self -fear. He had not the courage to go ahead 
and defy the hypocrites. He wanted to tell them 
the truth, but knew he would lose his position 
if he did so. He feared the loss of bread and 
butter more than he did his nervous force and 
mental powers. But just here entered an ele- 
ment for which he was not to be blamed. He 
had never been told that fear of doing that which 
his conscience told him was the truth would 
wreck him — mentally and physically. He knew 
what the loss of a living wage meant but not 
what a loss of individuality meant. 

So, much of what we may psychologically call 
cowardice was not real cowardice because he 
knew no other way out. 

We had to start with his boyhood days in a 
New England town. His early instruction and 
schooling were the same as thousands; the same j 
old ruts and environments which make for the 
fear of what " the neighbors will say." Of 
an inquiring mind when he reached adoles- 

[84] 



HOW TO REST 



cence, any questions outside the school books 
or the Sunday school lessons were quickly sup- 
pressed. 

One day he went to the town library and 
asked for Haeckel's Riddle of the Universe. 
He had heard of it and some of the statements 
this eminent scientist made. The woman libra- 
rian said it was not a book fit for him to read 
and that evening informed his mother of the 
incident. The poor mother was shocked. 
' Why, what will the people say — my son turn- 
ing infidel! " 

Then I had him tell me of all those incidents 
where suppression was the moving spirit of his 
" education." Knowledge of self, the normal 
and rightful curiosity of sex life and develop- 
ment, the instruction he so badly needed, all in 
general and detail were denied him. 

I showed him how fear, how the strain of hav- 
ing to keep to himself all those surging desires 
to know and act, had from the very beginning 
affected his mental and physical life. 

" Sick headaches when he was a boy? Why, 
Doctor, how did you know? I had almost for- 
gotten them. I used to have fearful attacks. 
They would keep me in bed for two or three 

[85] 



HOW TO REST 



days. The doctor said they were only ' bilious 
attacks.' " 

Yes; only "bilious attacks," due to subcon- 
scious nervous shocks, to the constant interfer- 
ence with a developing physiological system 
which either prevented the normal action of 
body juices or else turned them into over- 
activity. 

With all the factors for individuality in 
chains; with the constant fear that he must not 
go outside the conventional rut of thinking or 
doing, he went a mental slave to the theological 
school and then to preach where thinking was a 
crime. 

We went over his life again in order to show 
him how fear had been his ruin. Of course he 
needed physical attention in the way of exer- 
cise and proper food. So long had he existed 
upon fried meats, doughnuts, pies and cakes that 
it took him some time to get his stomach to 
digest nourishing food. 

Then came the task of driving out fear and 
cultivating self-courage in the matter of think- 
ing. His brain had become starved from proper 
mental food, his nerves exhausted from the pull 
upon them; for nothing will so quickly bring 

[86] 



HOW TO REST 



about nervous exhaustion as permitting others 
to pull on them at one end while you are pulling 
on the other. 

Well, we worked with him until self-confi- 
dence took the place of fear. He gained flesh 
and strength. Ambition was aroused and took 
hold of him. To return to the pulpit he knew 
was out of the question if he was to keep his 
mental and physical health. Yet the impulse 
to get at the social evils, at the ignorance and 
hypocrisy of the masses, was so powerful that 
he was determined to do it some way. 

So he went into the newspaper field — 
about the only field in this country where 
fear of " what the neighbors will say " and 
hypocrisy have no soil upon which to even 
sprout. 

He is working hard and putting in long hours. 
He still improves physically and mentally. He 
has shaken up more than one indifferent and 
hypocritical town and community. He is daily 
obtaining brain food and nerve nourishment. 
He does not know what nerve and brain fatigue 
means — only what satisfied weariness for the 
time means. 

And right here I want to point out why news- 

[87] 



HOW TO REST 



paper men and their kind can withstand so much 
pressure and constant work and not break down. 
Of course some do break down but seldom if 
ever from work — habits, careless living habits 
do the trick. 

In spite of the fact that newspaper men and 
women are constantly using brain cells, the fact 
that they also are constantly resting them is 
the secret. And it is a secret which can be made 
very useful to every man and woman if they 
will profit by the explanation. 

No man knows the extent of the possible 
brain development. All we know is that 
through mental application and concentration 
we can discover forces and elements for new 
ideas never before suspected. The only reason 
more startling revelations of this truth are not 
in evidence is man's incomplete control over 
himself. He will stop some of these new brain 
growths through periods of wrong living, lazi- 
ness or lack of ambition. 

Now, the active newspaper man may one day 
be obliged to look up the history of the discov- 
eries of Egyptian papyrus, in order to prepare 
himself to interview some prominent scientist. 
From this interview he receives first-hand in- 

[88] 



HOW TO REST 



formation in a manner which makes a lasting 
impression. 

From the writing of his story upon this sub- 
ject he will be shot off to view the wreck of a 
train and get some ideas regarding the cause. 
He is bound to receive some knowledge of 
mechanics during this assignment. The next 
day it may be a politician he has to talk with, 
and this gives him an insight into the motives 
and meanness of some men. Prize fight, mur- 
der, theater, social scandal or hospital work, all 
enter into his active life. If he has been sent 
off to look for reported submarines he will re- 
turn with more knowledge of these and allied 
war vessels than the average educated man. 

Now, do you see the point? While he may 
return to his desk fairly tired out with study and 
talk of Babylonian discoveries, his new assign- 
ment at once shuts these tired cells off from 
others, for he has to interview a celebrated 
actress, and there is no opportunity for the 
Babylonian cells to get to work while he is being 
charmed or bored by the actress. Again, these 
cells are put to rest as next day he goes to search 
for the murderer of a young girl. 

So it goes. A group of brain cells here at 
[89] 



HOW TO REST 



work, another resting, others not suspected, 
ready for a sudden call. 

And this, or analogous work, is what I mean 
by saying that the food for the brain and rest 
for the brain is mental work so distributed that 
there is never complete exhaustion of any one 
group of cells. 

Steadily working along your line of interest 
and ambition is necessary for any sort of accom- 
plishment. But there must be subsidiary lines of 
interest in order to develop mentality and give 
the main shop a shutdown. 

If you permit any fear of what your neigh- 
bors or enemies will say, you will fail in full 
accomplishment. No matter how well you do, 
you cannot do your best. If you fear to make 
enemies you will not have many. If you are 
conscientiously doing what you think is right 
and it is really worth-while what you are doing, 
you will have enemies; and the greater success 
you are demonstrating the greater number of 
your enemies. But these personal enemies are 
friends in disguise. Your only real enemy is 
yourself — the fear you foolishly possess. 

Fear, worries; worry injures every function in 
the body. Worry can cause Bright's disease, 

[90] 



HOW TO REST 



fear of ridicule will eat up the nerve cells, let- 
ting others apply brakes to your efforts will jar 
the brain. 

While I have been on this chapter a young 
man of thirty-seven has interrupted me because 
he wanted and really needed help; needed food 
for his brain and nerves. 

" For six months, Doctor, I have taken a 
pocketful of pills, pounds of stuff for the nerves, 
all kinds of dieting have been tried upon me, 
and I have reached the limit of endurance and 
patience. I went to a place where they repair 
men through fresh air and exercise. I did re- 
ceive much benefit from this treatment — physi- 
cal benefit; but my mental and nervous state 
worries me." 

He was a successful business man in every 
way. That is, he held a somewhat responsible 
position with a good salary. His work was so 
regulated it could go along for weeks without 
close personal attention, and this fact had kept 
his mental and nervous state from being known 
to his business acquaintances. But, as he said, 
he had reached his limit — what could be done 
for him? 

As his case is so typical in its general aspects 
[91] 



HOW TO REST 



of thousands of men in this country, I consider 
its lessons of value to all who will read into it 
the fact that there is always a way out of these 
troubles. 

This man had, a year before he broke down, 
quite a little fortune. He speculated and lost 
it all. Although he says the loss did not bother 
him, it undoubtedly did in a general teasing 
way; sufficient to cause loss of sleep and pro- 
duce anxiety. He had been married only a 
year or so before his financial loss, and concern- 
ing his speculation and its final unlucky termi- 
nation he had told his wife absolutely nothing. 

Remember that his salary was sufficient to 
keep up the accustomed living expenses and 
permit of the usual pleasures of this couple; 
hence the wife had no cause for suspicion that 
all was not well. That is, at first. But her hus- 
band's physical condition and mental state could 
not be hidden from her, so came the hoary old 
explanation — business worries due to the war- 
time conditions. 

The whole trouble with this young man 
started when he feared to tell his wife of his 
losses. He feared her blame, her loss of con- 
fidence. Oh well, he was just a moral coward. 

[92] 



HOW TO REST 



But don't overlook the fact that the psychic ex- 
citement of speculating, bringing with it a daily 
disturbance of physiologic functions, hurried 
midday luncheons and a " pick-me-up," his mind 
at night ever on the same track of hope or 
switching to the sidetrack of despair and off 
again, kept his ductless glands overactive, caus- 
ing a high blood pressure, or else overstimula- 
tion, all of which finally brought about a state 
of autointoxication. 

We all know that the man who is always 
under the influence of alcohol even to a mild 
extent soon loses his self-confidence, is in fact a 
moral coward. He hesitates, procrastinates; 
fears to face the facts and see the truth. Such 
a man never can be true to himself; and the 
person who cannot be true to himself cannot 
be true to others. 

So our young man was primarily too cow- 
ardly to confide in his wife through the influence 
of intoxicating material manufactured in his 
own body. 

This form of intoxication of course aided 
and abetted his attitude of repression — keeping 
everything to himself. He had this factor 
always working for his mental and nervous un- 

[93] 



HOW TO REST 



doing, for the repression worked inwardly and 
kept gnawing at his weakening energies. 

You can now see why in these kinds of 
nervous fatigues and mental upsets all or any 
form of drugs and medicines only do harm 
instead of curing. It is the stored-up psychic 
products of repression, plus the accumulated 
by-products of the body's poison, which must 
be cleaned out before any cure can be brought 
about. 

To make a clean breast of it to his wife was 
the first form of treatment, and so certain I 
was that he would make matters worse by get- 
ting some " Dutch courage " before approaching 
her, that I went direct to her with him. 

Oh, what a change came over him when his 
good little wife took the whole matter as a sort 
of joke! " Why! If only you had told me in 
the first place, Jack, just see how much misery 
you could have saved yourself! I knew some- 
thing was wrong — you were so restless at night, 
and many times have I lain awake listening 
to your groans and sighs. But you always 
shut me off when I tried to ask you what was 
the matter, — you merely said it was worry over 
the fact that the mills could not turn out your 

[94] 



HOW TO REST 



orders on time, and a lot of other tales of the 
kind." 

Well, we relieved that pressure of repression. 
It acted upon him in about the same manner as 
the opening of a big abscess acts upon the gen- 
eral feeling of the man who has been suffering 
physical pain for days. 

That night he slept. His brain received some 
food — cell repair. But of course there were 
still the effects of body poisons as well as those 
of the drugs to be corrected, and now that he 
understood the whole matter this was a simple 
procedure. 

I write this concluding paragraph three weeks, 
later than the opening in order to state that this 
man, once on the verge of despair to the point 
of self-destruction, is now mentally in better 
condition than ever in his life and gaining 
physically. 

I say better mentally because the lesson has 
resulted in his starting to put into activity some 
new groups of brain cells, so that when the 
day's work is over they can rest and repair. His 
wife is the means of aiding in this new work. 
She is an educated woman of normal instincts; 
not a scholastic female. She knows the sort of 

[95] 



HOW TO REST 



reading which will interest and develop her hus- 
band's mind. She realizes, as he is coming to 
realize, that his year of horrors was really the 
best thing that could have happened to him. 
Without it never could he have been brought to 
understand the value of having a mental de- 
velopment which could be so under control 
that when overfatigue came he could rest and 
repair by shutting off at once its cause, and 
starting into activity another or other group 
of brain cells. 



[96] 



CHAPTER VI 

DOMESTIC DRUDGERY AND BODY 
FATIGUE 

Nothing in the life of the average American 
wife and mother ages her so quickly as mo- 
notony. The farmer's wife, the wife of the 
country merchant and all those women who 
have to live in small towns or isolated districts 
are mentally fatigued and nervously exhausted 
by the time they reach fifty years of age. 

Such conditions are all wrong. A wife and 
mother should commence to enjoy life and her 
children and be free from physical or nervous 
troubles as she approaches middle age. The 
many years which should follow the years of 
labor and stress ought to be years of relaxation, 
pleasure and just enough work to keep mind 
and body in a state of health. 

What we generally find in these women is a 
chronic state of overfatigue. Frequently this 
fatigue has gone on to the aching point. Every 

[97] 



HOW TO REST 



muscle in the body seems at times to be stressed 
to the nagging condition. 

Backache is merely a symptom of the strain 
the nervous system has been on while holding 
upright the body at times it should have rest in 
the sitting or lying position. Man has only 
lately, as evolution goes, assumed the upright 
position, and it is a constant strain upon the 
powerful back muscles to maintain the upstand- 
ing position. Also it involves a strain upon the 
abdominal muscles, and this in young women is 
often the cause for invalidism of an embarras- 
sing nature. In attempting to relieve these 
strains there comes a tremendous pull upon the 
calves of the legs. From the group of muscles 
in, this part of the leg tendons or sinews run 
down to and support the arch of the foot. 

When these tendons have been overstrained 
to the breaking point day after day, they gradu- 
ally yield to the excessive pull and the arch of 
the foot falls. Now goes out all that elasticity 
and spring of the foot which makes walking a 
pleasure. But this is not the great effect of a 
fallen arch. The great effect is that of the loss 
of mental buoyancy, the depressed feeling the 
condition brings to the girl or woman ; the lack of 

[98] 



HOW TO REST 



endurance, the torture of having lost the joy of 
walking, dancing and romping. 

In one respect our so-called democracy has 
worked evil for many women and girls. It has 
caused a state of fatigue and often injury to 
their bodies. This fatigue is a chronic condi- 
tion where fatigue products are steadily pour- 
ing into the blood. The almost universal 
distress among women in rural and suburban 
districts may be realized by reading the adver- 
tisements of the patent medicine makers. 

The average American girl is brought up 
through her schooldays as though there was a 
surety of her marrying so as never to have to 
labor. It is expected that she will rise above 
her family circumstances, and be so situated that 
lifting a pail of water will be an unthinkable act. 

While the ambition to rise socially and finan- 
cially is a creditable ambition, we should look 
the facts in the face and realize that no matter 
what the future holds for the girl she should 
have such a training as to fit her for whatever 
comes. 

The reason for these remarks is that I have 
seen many, many young wives completely 
broken down because they went directly from a 

[99] 



HOW TO REST 



life of mere social pleasure to that of household 
activity. Never having had such training as 
would strengthen abdominal muscles and de- 
velop the abdominal walls, lifting, carrying, 
standing all day, soon caused conditions which 
mean only misery to every woman. 

No thought in school or home that a certain 
amount of exercise was necessary to develop and 
strengthen the girl for the work of wife and 
mother ever seems to find a place. Then again, 
the sudden jump from a care-free life to one 
of intense monotony plays the deuce with the 
character of the girl aside from the physical dis- 
tress. It is the daily grind, the steady wear 
and tear upon a certain group of brain cells, 
with no relief as time goes on, which brings 
about a wearied body and indifferent mind in 
the woman of the rural districts. The woman 
does her work far into the night ever thinking, 
" What shall we have for tomorrow's dinner? " 
Her husband may have been sitting on the hay- 
rake all day or on a chair in his store. He may 
be driving around attending to his business, talk- 
ing with men and women of the affairs of the 
day, or he may be at the carpenter's bench. 
But the wife gets up early in the morning and 

[100] 



HOW TO REST 



once on her feet scarcely finds the time to sit 
down to eat a digestible meal. 

Oh, how her back aches, her limbs tremble, 
her constipation distresses! What's the use of 
complaining? It only makes matters worse, and 
so she goes through her devastating work unre- 
lieved of its monotony, her mind never having a 
refreshing thought nor offered stimulating ideas 
from the outside world. 

In the Kama Soutra — the Brahmins' book of 
the Laws of Love — there are sixty-four arts or 
acquirements which must be mastered by every 
girl who wishes to be a healthy and happy wife. 
Many refer to and deal with the care of the 
physical attributes of the body necessary to at- 
tract and hold a husband. These are not ap- 
plicable to the girls of our civilization, nor would 
it be advisable or is it necessary to know of 
them. However, as showing that the Orientals 
recognized the value and necessity of having 
their young women taught arts which would 
relieve the monotony of domestic life, I give a 
few of them here. Many are, in their general 
application, well known to our women and girls, 
but many really of use as brain food are scorned 
by the women of today. 

[101] 



HOW TO REST 



The fact is that what the backaching woman 
today needs is a homeopathic dose of feminism 
as well as some true feminine relief from her 
awful household drudgery. She needs the dose 
of feminism to back her up in demanding a 
day or two off from her intense labors, to give 
her courage to sit down once in a while and 
keep mentally fresh, as well as to possess the 
the right for periods of complete relaxation. 

But to get to our arts of being happy and 
well though married. 

1. The girl should learn to sing in a sooth- 
ing and pleasing voice. 

2. To play a musical instrument. 

3. To dance. 

4. To combine these three arts so as to 
please her husband. 

5. To write verses and draw. 

6. To tattoo her body. 

7. To arrange beds and couches with flow- 
ers and perfumes. 

8. To arrange her hair, color her teeth, 
manicure her finger and toe nails. 

9. To arrange flowers, vases, rugs, so that 
colors bring pleasure to the eyes and perfumes 
to the senses. 

[102] 



HOW TO REST 



10. To distil perfumes from flowers. 

11. To arrange jewels according to their 
value. 

12. To prepare the different kinds of meals 
according to seasons and sexes. 

13. To distil and make pleasing drinks, 
sorbets, liquor extracts, spirits, and serve them 
to men. 

14. To so exercise as to develop an attractive 
body, keep health and husband. 

15. To read characters by observing the lan- 
guage and deportment of men. 

While many of these admonitions and instruc- 
tions will bring a smile from the reader, she 
must not forget that the men who wrote them 
had but one purpose — to relieve the monotony 
of their women's lives — just the one thought 
which is absent from minds of most husbands in 
this land. 

Even if you have reached the age where you 
feel always tired, where the mind is so fatigued 
at night that you cannot read the news of the 
day, you need not be discouraged. Even if your 
back aches so you feel a good cry would be a 
relief, or your tired feet are swollen and feel 
as though they were treading upon hot iron, 

[103] 



HOW TO REST 



there is a way out for you. But it will take a 
little effort on your part. You must have a 
determination to get your right to health — then 
get it. 

First get into your tired mind the fact that 
something about the house must be neglected. 
Of course you will say that nothing can be 
neglected. Very well, but a mighty poor, an 
untruthful statement. Which need the most 
care — your windows or your body? " But the 
windows are so dirty, I am ashamed of them," 
I hear you say. Fear, fear of neighbors' re- 
marks! But the inside of your aching body is 
also dirty — it needs cleaning. And the neigh- 
bors will remark about that also; say how 
tired you look — " poor woman, all worked out! " 
Never mind what they say about your body or 
windows, clean the body for your own sake and 
for those whom you love. 

When you get up in the morning do not drink 
a cup of coffee or tea. Take a sponge bath and 
a good rub. Then drink two glasses of water. 
Now to breakfast. Coffee if you wish, with 
very little sugar. Fruit, cereal and then almost 
anything you relish except fried things. Pie, 
doughnuts, pickles, cake; pastry of all kinds are 

[104] 



HOW TO REST 



unfit foods. Eggs are really the best for the 
woman who can eat them. 

Sit down to breakfast and remain there thirty 
minutes. Can't do it? Well then, there is no 
use in going further in pointing out to you what 
to do in getting a rested body, rounded curves, 
pleasing complexion, contented mind. 

But of course you can sit down to your meals 
and remain a decently long time. Let your hus- 
band wait upon himself. He sits down to much 
of his work whatever its nature. Your morn- 
ing's duties mostly done — mostly, I say, because 
you never would admit they were all done — go 
to your room, loosen your clothes, and lie down 
for thirty minutes. If you do not feel just like 
stretching yourself on the lounge or bed, sit in 
a chair and read the morning paper. Don't let 
your husband possess all the knowledge of the 
day, even if you permit him to think he does. 

Write out and pin to your mirror these in- 
junctions: " In order to regain health and keep 
it I must let some room or window look sick. 
If I want to have strong nerves and a rested 
body I must learn the first law of body-keep- 
ing — NEGLECT THOSE LITTLE UNESSENTIALS OF 
HOUSEKEEPING WHICH HAVE ENSLAVED ME." 

[105] 



HOW TO REST 



Nobody but neighbors with broken-down 
nerves will ever notice an unswept room — every- 
body with normal eyesight will notice a woman 
who does not sweep her mind and body of the 
cobwebs of monotony. 

If you have a husband who had rather see 
you chronically tired and ageing long before 
your time than see a cold dinner or have you 
resting and letting the baking go, get rid of 
him. There is very little difference between 
such a man and one who will beat his wife. 
Only, in most cases of the former kind it is 
sheer ignorance and lack of understanding which 
is the cause of his attitude. 

This kind of a man is generally reasonable 
when the matter is explained to him. But the 
deplorable influences of your and his grand- 
parents, parents and community ruts are diffi- 
cult to overcome. 

You do not need a doctor or medicine to make 
you over into a well and active-thinking woman. 
You need that factor in you which is always 
there — determination to take as good or better 
care of yourself as you have of your house- 
hold. 

If a few women in every rural or suburban 
[106] 



HOW TO REST 



community would get together and strike for 
two free days in the week, the health and hap- 
piness resulting would soon teach the thousands 
of overworked housekeepers to do likewise. 

Establish a place where you can go alone or 
with your family and have your dinner twice 
a week. Have a cook who takes full charge and 
will not divulge what you are to eat, for the 
one outstanding cause for poor appetites in the 
average housekeeper is the sight, odor, prepara- 
tion and worry over meals. 

Ten or more families can support such a place 
and the cost will not be any more than the same 
meal prepared at home. 

Something of this kind of relaxation is needed 
by every wife and mother. It is just sufficient 
release from drudgery to aid in keeping the 
health of the wife and not enough departure to 
lead to any interruption of family life. 

Upon the first symptoms of backache go to 
your room and relax. Drop everything for the 
time being. There is no other way out. Any 
other way means being carried out for good — 
long before your time. Try to supplant gossip 
by reading. Avoid as much as possible those 
who will run in and tell you of their aches and 

[107] 



HOW TO REST 



pains, or of the aches and pains of others. Gos- 
sip, the curse of rural communities, is a brain 
poison and not a brain food. 

If you are afraid that the neighbors will 
gossip should you feel the necessity of relax- 
ing three times a day, let them gossip. Tell 
them you no longer intend to be " all tired out," 
but intend to be a well woman. 

The condition and care of the hair affects the 
nervous system of all women. Every woman 
knows how a headache will be relieved by mas- 
sage of the scalp, and what a feeling of ease 
and quietude follows a good washing and dry- 
ing of the hair. 

There is a direct connection between the 
health of a woman and the condition of her 
hair. Women of a hysterical nature have abun- 
dant hair, thick and of fine texture. The 
anaemic, " tired out " woman will have thin hair, 
generally splitting at the end, and her scalp will 
hold a lot of dandruff. 

This latter state is mostly due to the woman's 
lassitude and her inability to get the strength or 
ambition to care for her hair and scalp. 

The food for the hair is the food you take 
for general health. There is no hair tonic or 

[108] 



HOW TO REST 



growth promoter except good health and a bal- 
anced nervous system. 

There is a lot of nervous energy expended 
upon the hair. The tiny blood vessels which 
nourish the roots have to be attended to by 
the tiny nerves so as to keep the blood supply 
up to its work; the oil glands and sweat glands 
also depend upon their nerves for their health. 

No woman can be in good health who neglects 
her hair. She should take an afternoon once a 
week for its toilet. Brush it with a fairly stiff 
brush until every strand has been gone over. 
Then rub the scalp with the same brush. Sit 
in a low chair and let the hair drop over its 
back. Now take a few strands in your hand 
and carefully but caressingly pass over each 
strand a piece of silk. That is, from the roots 
to the ends polish the hair with a piece of silk. 

This latter detail of the hair toilet is very 
important if you are a brunette, for it brings 
out the sheen and gloss of the dark hair. 

Do not wash your hair in soap very often 
unless you have been where dirt and dust have 
been flying. 

Nervous conditions of all sorts are only signs 
put out by the nerve cells that they are tired or 

[109] 



HOW TO REST 



poisoned. It matters very little whether it is an 
aching back, aching head, inability to sleep or 
fretfulness and faultfinding. The fault is 
somewhere in the nerves themselves or in the 
higher brain centers. 

If you have a headache and have a heavy head 
of hair which has been up all day, or it is at night 
after dancing, take down your hair and give it a 
good shake in fresh air. Then slowly brush it 
for ten minutes. You will be surprised at the 
relief you receive. 

Don't rush from the kitchen and, giving your 
hair a few comb pulls, toss it up into shape, pin 
on a hat and start out. It is a nervous affair, is 
the hair, and needs decent treatment. It will 
resent any such neglect just as much as the 
stomach would when you stand up and bite a 
piece of cake and swallow a cup of tea or cof- 
fee, trying to fool it by saying, " Oh, that's 
all I want — I'm in a hurry!" And when you 
come home tired out you wonder why your head 
throbs so. 

Many headaches called " nervous headaches " 
are due to want of care of the feet. No matter 
if your boots are well-fitting and you think they 
do not pinch, they should be taken off when you 

[110] 



HOW TO REST 



return from a walk, and shoes put on. Every 
woman wants to be well dressed in footwear. 
She should be, for nothing so quickly tells of 
the breeding, taste and culture as the kind of 
boots and shoes she wears and the way she wears 
them. 

But however she may wear her boots, they 
will press upon some little blood vessel or nerve. 
Not so you notice it, but enough for the nerve 
to send word to headquarters that it needs a 
rest. Feet which have been on hard floors all 
day, or upon the pavements while walking, need 
a rest. The only way they can get the proper 
nerve rest is to have them placed in new and 
comfortable surroundings — shoes or loose slip- 
pers. Taking off boots and stockings, place 
the feet upon a chair and gently rub from the 
toes to the ankles. Then let them rest in a fresh 
pair of stockings and shoes or slippers, and if 
you had any slight headache or a feeling of 
pressure around the forehead, it will disappear. 

Ill-fitting corsets will cause a peculiar sort of 
nervousness. There is a feeling of " goneness " 
in the stomach, a " fidgety " feeling which makes 
you want to be on the move every minute. If 
you are where you ought to be still — concert, for 

cm] 



HOW TO REST 



instance — you feel as though you " would fly out 
of your skin." The more you try to control 
yourself the worse you feel, and finally in des- 
peration you get to your room and remove the 
cause of the trouble. But you do not really 
know the cause — the corset pressing over the 
solar plexus — only that you know you feel bet- 
ter when free from all clothes. 

A similar form of nervousness is caused by 
wearing tight collars or any tight neckwear; 
also this will prevent a proper supply of blood 
to the cheeks, which means in time starved 
cheeks, a pale and muddy complexion. 

Much brain fatigue in women comes from 
imitation. As I have pointed out, brain food is 
best obtained by having a variety of things to 
do and developing new thoughts while doing 
them. A woman sees another with the latest 
style of coat. She also must have one like it. 
So off she goes at the first opportunity to secure 
one. It is the same whether it is a skirt or hat, 
lamp or lorgnette. From the moment she saw 
something another woman of her class possessed, 
her mind has dwelt upon that one thing. Hence 
the brain in a way becomes fatigued. This is 
one reason why a woman, when she has shopped 

[112] 



HOW TO REST 



all day to get an exact duplicate, finds upon her 
return home that it does not suit her — she wants 
to go back and exchange it. 

Now, if the thing she saw stimulated her mind 
to think of what improvement upon it she could 
make ; how much better it would look in another 
or other colors; how becoming it would appear 
if shaped somewhat differently; the woman's 
brain would receive food and not fatigue. In 
other words, create, originate, if you want a 
brain which grows. Imitate without thinking if 
you want a brain which easily tires. 

Many women suffer from headaches and a 
general feeling of an unstrung nervous system 
due to too constant standing over the heat of 
stove or range. There is no doubt but what 
this state of affairs makes for many uncomfort- 
able hours in homes which otherwise would be 
at peace. 

There are certain temperaments and certain 
physiological states which cannot be denied. To 
say, " Oh, you'll soon get accustomed to it," 
is about as valuable as the hoary advice always 
given to the worrying one: "There is nothing 
the matter with you but worry; stop worry- 
ing and you will be all right." One might with 

[113] 



HOW TO REST 



just as much reason and sense say to the un- 
fortunate epileptic, " There is nothing the mat- 
ter with you except the fits; just stop having 
the fits and you will be all right! " 

The woman who always has headaches and 
whose eyes are affected after being over a cook- 
ing stove or range is under a nervous strain 
which will ultimately injure her. She is pulling 
out just so much nervous capital and while 
young may go on and keep up the strain. But 
the time will come when she will find all ordi- 
nary and necessary work not only hardship but 
that form of killing labor which brings disgust 
of life and a desire to get out of it. A home 
with the wife and mother a nervous bankrupt is 
far quicker broken up than one where the father 
and husband has lost his position, salary and 
capital. There are hope, determination, the 
grand opportunities open to all when viewed 
through the eyes of perfect health, but the nerv- 
ously exhausted woman sees black and throws 
a somber atmosphere over all and everything 
around her. 

The woman who is really living on her nerves 
while struggling to do what she believes to be 
her duty over the cooking range will be found 

[114] 



HOW TO REST 



to have other traits and qualities which given 
opportunity to express themselves will be of far 
greater value to home and husband than she is 
as a cook. It is a personal problem which must 
be settled by the loving understanding of the 
husband. Some men cannot stand indoor appli- 
cation of a confining nature, and take up more 
congenial and health-giving work. 

Not all young women can be taken from a life 
of fresh air and hours of freedom and put into 
a small room to stand over the hot fumes of 
range and dish water. 

For those who cannot at once find a way out, 
if they will wear dark colored glasses while 
cooking much of the headache and eye weari- 
ness may be avoided. Some will find that these 
glasses will take all of the strain off; others that 
they will be only a temporary relief. 

The care of the nervous system and the food 
for the brain is, as you now see, almost a per- 
sonal matter — that is, you have to understand 
just what sort of treatment nerves and brain 
need and can stand, and adjust your habits of 
work and thoughts accordingly. 



[115] 



CHAPTER VII 

CLEANING THE BRAIN FOR NEW 
THOUGHTS 

It is reported that one reason for the con- 
tinued efficiency of the big guns used by the 
German artillerists is the training the men have 
had in caring for these guns. They have been 
shown and instructed in the causes of the rapid 
decline in power and distance of the big cannon 
and howitzers — accumulation of dirt and gas by- 
products in breech and barrel. 

After shooting a few times, unless the gun is 
thoroughly cleaned, cooled and rested while an- 
other is taking its place, it will not only fail to 
send its devastating shell the allotted distance, 
but will frequently explode at breech or tear 
asunder the muzzle. Lacking pre-war training 
in this important branch of gunnery, the Allies 
have lost many of their big guns. Attempting 
to fire them constantly, without thorough clean- 
ing and without rest, expecting them to keep 
useful after accumulation of work by-products 

[116] 



HOW TO REST 



have choked them, the guns have exploded or 
otherwise been put out of use. 

A man's brain will act in a similar manner if 
kept constantly on the firing-line, shooting 
thoughts or propelling ideas without intervals 
for rest and periods of cleaning. The mental 
breakdowns, the morbid ideas, the soot result- 
ing from constant dwelling on one thing — busi- 
ness affairs, for example — are the effects of ex- 
plosions of overused brain cells. 

One of the effects of neglecting to clean the 
brain at certain intervals of mental application 
is the morbid fear of losing the job. 

I say job instead of position, for most men 
who have neglected the care of their brains still 
have a job; those who have understood the 
necessity of cleaning and resting their brains 
hold positions. 

The man who has reached forty years of age 
and been employed most of his years with one 
firm or business house, and who still holds a 
fair job with a living salary, but sees little 
prospect of obtaining a good position, is one 
who has spent more time worrying about the 
future than he has put in in caring for his brain. 

Now, I might reiterate the old, rust-eaten 

[117] 



HOW TO REST 



advice, by saying that if this man — and all of 
his kind — would stop worrying about his future, 
if he would get rid of his fear, he would forge 
ahead, leave his job and obtain a position. To 
tell him again that worry only increases the 
trouble, that worry fills and chokes up brain 
channels and this injurious circle of inhibition 
will hold him within its confines, is only to re- 
peat what he knows. 

What such men want to know, what they ab- 
solutely must know and understand if they are 
to progress instead of going backward, is how 
to stop or prevent worrying. This is the essen- 
tial and saving knowledge. 

The whole trouble lies back in some physio- 
logic fault or disturbance. This of course has 
brought about a psychic state complicating mat- 
ters and we find the one dominant idea ruling — 
fear of losing salary, and " what will become of 
my family? " 

This I find in many men of big mental caliber 
but of rusty and sooty mental barrels. They 
started wrong. Too many started to make 
money at an age when they should have been 
making physical strength and gathering self- 
confidence. They entered employment as boys 

[118] 



HOW TO REST 



impressed by teachers of romantic ideas and 
mothers of passive experience, that explicit 
obedience to superiors and close application to 
their duties was the way to promotion and suc- 
cess. 

Such advice in its broad application is all very 
well; but given to a boy of unformed habits of 
thinking and one who has not reached the initi- 
ative age, he soon falls into the rut of just doing 
and not thinking. 

He does the thing he is told to do in the way 
he is told to do it. He fears to suggest a new 
way or to try one ; and as the years go on we find 
him mentally an automatic worker with the fear 
now that his place will be filled with another 
and younger man. 

Quite frequently he will have for a wife one 
of the same mental material. She also fears; 
fears for the future of her children, of their 
home; and the talk in the evening is not of 
the important affairs of the day, but of their 
fears. 

" Oh, John, do you really think you'll lose 
your position? " It is always " position " to her. 
" What will become of us all? Harry is too 
young to go to work, and Mary — oh, I can't 

[119] 



HOW TO REST 



bear to think of it ! John, do you think it would 
do any good if I went to see Mr. Robinson? " 

That is the kind of mental cleaning John 
gets from morning to night, and during the 
night he stores up further clogs for clear think- 
ing by restless sleep or verbal admonitions from 
his worried wife. 

And all this time down at the office there is 
no thought or idea of discharging John. No, 
nor any idea of promoting him, for he is in a 
rut and as a thinking machine is of no value to 
his firm. Yet at forty years of age he can get 
out of the rut and become a force and power to 
any business house. Only he does not know it 
and his employers do not believe it. 

How can he do it? Perhaps a case or two I 
have just handled will let in the light. 

S. did not like school and at fourteen years 
of age wanted to earn money. Now, get this 
distinctly in your mind. He wanted to earn 
money. He had no particular choice or idea of 
what kind or sort of work he wanted to do — 
did not care so long as it brought money. His 
father could well have afforded to have had him 
trained and fitted for something — trade or pro- 
fession. But like most American fathers, in- 

[120] 



HOW TO REST 



stead of taking up the matter and seeing just 
what the boy was fitted for and keeping him 
where he would be fitted, he went the way of 
the least resistance and said, " If the boy won't 
go to school, let him go to work." There you 
are, and there the boy was! 

He went with a mercantile house where chem- 
ists were employed and where there always were 
openings for trained youths in foreign capitals. 

From office boy to clerk, from a clerkship to 
head bookkeeper. He had held this latter job 
for sixteen years when he came to me a worried, 
thin, pitiable man of thirty-eight years of age. 

He had seen younger men go up and pass 
him. Seen youths come into the office and in 
five years become managers and big-salaried 
men. Yet he still was kept in the same old rut, 
and it had worn him down. Oh yes, he under- 
stood the value of training, and had no feeling 
of injustice or jealousy toward anyone in the 
office. 

" But, Doctor, I've lost my grip, my courage, 
self-confidence. I know they see it at the office, 
and of course I'll lose my job. My wife tells 
me not to worry; that I am overworried; that 
everything will come out all right,"— lucky man 

[121] 



HOW TO REST 



to have such a wife, — " but I cannot see it. 
IWhat worries me most is my inability to con- 
centrate upon anything. The fear of what will 
certainly happen is always with me. Don't tell 
me not to worry. I have been told that so many 
times I never want to see another doctor." 

Every man who has been or is in this condi- 
tion need not be told any more about his feel- 
ings; and those who are not cannot understand 
— so we will get down to the way this man got 
out. 

Of course you can see where the original 
fault lies, but it would have been cruel to ham- 
mer that into the helpless man ; and it would not 
help others to philosophize upon it. 

" Go to your employers and tell them you 
need a long vacation. This is the first lesson 
you must take. It means the hardest lesson you 
will have. It is the first cleaning out of your 
clogged brain. You fear they will tell you that 
if you feel that way you need not return to 
work. Face the fear and strengthen your char- 
acter. If you have been faithful in your work 
for over twenty years and your employers can- 
not see that a long vacation taken under the 
advice of a physician means greater benefit to 

[122] 



HOW TO REST 



them when you return fit to face the world — 
you are not now so fit — then get out for good, 
and get out at once. 

" A man in your condition at thirty-eight 
years of age cannot get any position of stability. 
A man of your age in the condition you ought 
to be and can be can get a better job — get a 
position — at any time. 

" You cannot see it, of course. You are men- 
tally so clogged you could not see the sunshine 
if it was thrown into your eyes. 

"Here is the proposition: You are poisoned 
by the poisons of your body. Your mind needs 
cleaning as well as your body. Your fear keeps 
you from relaxing the mind, your morbid physi- 
cal state from enjoying the benefits of exercise 
and fresh air. You have become a miser. You 
have falsely economized by eating tinned stuff 
instead of fresh food. You and your otherwise 
sensible wife have been storing up for the day 
you get your last pay envelope. 

' You are going to take some of that money 
out of the savings bank — all if necessary — and 
start a new mental and physical life. You are 
going to return in a year laughing at fear, head 
up, self-confidence oozing from every pore and 

[123] 



HOW TO REST 



determination stamped upon your face. I am 
going to show you how. 

" Now for the first lesson. Go to the office 
and request a year's vacation. Tell them at the 
office that it is as much for their good as for 
yours. Say you want to get off the stool and 
stand upon your feet. 

" If they offer objections simply say you re- 
gret it, but you no longer intend to hold a job 
but a position. You realize that in your present 
condition and lack of training you are only fit 
for a job, but that you intend to change all 
that." 

He came back the next day looking more 
depressed than ever and the fear of self still 
holding him down. I went at it again, but 
finally concluded that the first start alone was 
too much for him. So I accompanied him as far 
as the office door and, pounding the facts into 
him, shoved him into his employers' office. 

He was better for the ordeal. It had for the 
moment taken his mind off himself. No, they 
would not promise to hold his stool for him. 
Oh yes, they would be glad to see him upon his 
return and probably might find a place for him. 
The first gleam of an imbedded self-confidence 

[124] 



HOW TO REST 



showed itself when he told them he did not want 
his old job back — he wanted a position where 
he could prove his usefulness or uselessness. 

I first sent him up into the woods with rod 
and gun. Here under explicit directions his 
wife saw to it that he had a good cleaning out 
from the physical side. I placed him in a com- 
munity of rational sportsmen and men who 
talked of almost everything but cash, sales and 
commerce. 

He was getting new brain food, rest for his 
nerves and proper food for his body. And the 
best of all signs, enjoying and digesting the dif- 
ferent kinds of food. 

Being physically fit I sent the man and wife 
on a sea voyage to South America. Before he 
started he said : " We shall need more money — 
to hang with the future! I am going to have 
a good blowout for once in my life. If I can't 
make it up — well, I'm no good. But I can, I 
know it!" 

The travel brought desire to read of the coun- 
tries he visited. From this to studying the re- 
sources and opportunities of the lands was a 
simple and normal process. He met men of 
other minds and ambitions. He felt the health 

[125] 



HOW TO REST 



and buoyancy of youth. He looked it, and 
this was a big asset. At the end of the year he 
had scores of newly developed brain cells, and 
returned to his old employers with initiative and 
self-confidence. He did not mention his old 
job, but pointed out where new business could 
be had and how to get it. 

He now has a large salary as manager of 
South American sales. He puts money away 
for his children, is going to see that his son is 
fitted for something in this world, and twice 
a year he and his wife go away and see that 
aU the by-products of his shooting brain are 
cleaned out and this brain rested by taking up 
things and matters foreign to his vocation. 

There is a form of brain stagnation and unit 
development which, while not very common in 
this country, can be very annoying and socially 
injurious. It takes the form of fear of loss of 
property. 

Judicious care of property, the oversight of 
man's possessions to protect and preserve, is a 
normal and necessary attribute of animal and 
human existence. The constant fear and sus- 
picion of others, the night and day worries, the 
mind upon nothing but how to keep others from 

[126] 



HOW TO REST 



getting the slightest benefit of one's fortune, the 
secretiveness and falsehoods such a mental atti- 
tude develops, are certain signs of mental star- 
vation. 

When this acquisitiveness goes over the border 
line and the fear goes to the extent of keeping 
the wealth where it may be seen and counted 
daily, where every cent is counted and saved to 
the exclusion of buying soap or paying for laun- 
dry, where in fact the whole existence of the 
individual is one of anti-social conduct, we have 
the miser. Now, the mental state of the true 
miser is a diseased state just as much as though 
he was suffering from paresis or any other 
organic destruction of brain cells. 

But we are not dealing with diseases, only 
with those who are made unfit, restless and mis- 
erable from exhausted conditions which can be 
corrected. 

While the following example of a foolish man 
and a wise woman scarcely comes under the 
head of our lessons, it is given to show how 
many kinds of brain food and nourishment are 
to be found, and how when given may re- 
make a man. 

F. was the only son of a very rich man. He 
[127] 



HOW TO REST 



was twenty-seven years of age and possessed of 
several millions. His father had brought him up 
in almost mean conditions. His one sole idea, 
carried out to the injurious extreme, was to 
teach his son economy. Instead he developed 
just one brain center in the lad — the morbid 
impulse to save every penny and live in a nig- 
gardly and unhygienic manner. 

The father would take the lad downtown — 
this was in New York — to some side street 
where second-hand clothing would be brought. 
The same in the matter of shoes and all cloth- 
ing. He went to a public school in the poor dis- 
tricts, but was taken away from a high school 
the first year because the miserly father would 
not pay for what he called ruinously extravagant 
fads and follies of the pupils. 

So at twenty-seven years of age we have a 
most miserable specimen of humanity. A young 
man who lived at a cheap hotel and who tramped 
miles to get an overcoat two dollars cheaper 
than he could uptown. There was nothing in 
his thoughts but saving money. When he 
wanted medical advice he went to the free 
clinics and waited with the poor and unfortu- 
nate. He would have resented being called a 

[128] 



HOW TO REST 



robber; but in this and various other ways he 
did rob the poor. 

He finally became a nervous, self-fearing per- 
son and the doctors asked him about his family 
— especially if there was any insanity in the 
family. The incomplete man, as he really was, 
became frightened as these and other leading 
questions were bluntly put to him — his mother 
had died in a cheap institution really from lack 
of food during her life with the miser. 

So we discovered who the young man was 
and laid down the law. It was some time before 
he could decide which was the thing to do — save 
all medical expense and go to a hospital for 
paupers, or take a few dollars of his millions 
and be treated properly and be made a well 
man. 

Once as a young student I pulled a huge 
molar from a negro who came into the clinic 
while the dentists were away. I had never 
pulled a tooth, but I had tremendous confidence 
in my muscular power. My confidence was 
not misplaced, but if ever an African turned 
pale, yelled when the hoodoo doctor called him, 
and disappeared as did my patience, it must 
have been a remarkable sight. 

[129] 



HOW TO REST 



But when we told this young millionaire what 
he must do and what would be the cost, his 
mental squirming and facial expression showed 
me there was a far more penetrating and agon- 
izing pain than that produced by my tooth- 
pulling work. 

He went to a high-class sanitarium after 
understanding that should he again try to rob 
the poor by taking up our time which belonged 
to the poor, or went to a charitable institution 
or hospital, we would expose him all over the 
land; then charge him heavily, and legally put 
him in the most expensive place we could find. 

At the sanitarium he met a nurse of excellent 
family and exquisite manners. She was highly 
cultivated, traveled, of normal instincts. 

There came a sudden awakening of the young 
man's suppressed forces and mentality. He was 
not inherently abnormal, though his father's 
training had made him appear so. He had been 
mentally starved, allowed no brain food except 
the raw extracts of penury and the stale waters 
of self-deprivation. 

He did not know that such mental food as 
literature, painting, music or conversation ex- 
isted. Even the sunlight which shone on the 

[130] 



HOW TO REST 



closed porches was a revelation to him. Of 
course a light had penetrated his heart which 
might account for appreciating the sunlight. 

The young woman was the proper surgeon 
for this young man. She opened his brain, fed 
the starved cells, rested and soothed the nerves. 

The cure did not take long. They were mar- 
ried and went to Europe, taking the most ex- 
pensive suite on the steamer. Now he is a man 
whose brain is well fed and whose nerves do not 
tremble from the fear that he will lose a penny 
by buying at first-class shops. He has de- 
veloped quite a musical talent and is devoting 
himself to music. He supports poor students 
and really is of value to society. 

The lesson to draw from this unique case is 
that the cure for a penurious man and starved 
brain individual is a brilliant woman. She must 
be given in full allopathic doses and repeated 
until the cure is effected. 



[131] 



CHAPTER VIII 

HOW TO PREVENT NERVOUSNESS 
IN CHILDREN 

Whenever I hear a mother remark, " But 
my daughter is such a nervous child I often 
overlook her little fits of temper," I wonder 
who will be so lenient when this child reaches 
womanhood. 

We have all been under a wrong impression 
regarding the nervous stability and mental ac- 
tivities of the child. Children between three 
and ten years of age in both sexes are in fact a 
bundle of unregulated nerves and highly sensi- 
tive brain cells. What has misled us in the 
treatment and understanding of the child's psy- 
chic development are the subjective influences, 
whose effects we have not realized because we 
have so long been accustomed to view such mat- 
ters from our adult experiences where the ob- 
jective effects are recognized. 

If you possess the normal tone and hearing 
sense, any discord of musical notes affects you 

[132] 









HOW TO REST 



disagreeably. You shudder, grate your teeth or 
flee the nerve-disturbing disharmony. If you 
are brought into a room where there is dis- 
harmony in colors, where the chromatic tones 

$ shoot painful rays to your optic centers, you 
instinctively receive a nervous shock. This 
shock may be very slight and pass from your 
conscious memory; it may be so strong, in those 
of pronounced artistic nature, as to leave an im- 
pression which will last for some time. 

The awful contrast of colors seen upon some 
women from hat to boots will cause you to in- 

jj stinctively turn and get another look at the 

|j polychromatic exhibition. The little episode has 
produced some kind of a jolt to your nerves and, 

l| while you do not realize it, has left its effect. 
In the normally developed nervous system it is 
probable that the effects are soon counteracted 
by other attractions of a pleasing nature. As an 
adult you can avoid or forget the unpleasant 
sight by the many little things which occupy 
your brain cells during the day or night. 

I was a guest for several days at the home 
of a young married pair whose house generally 
was filled with young and lively people. They 
had a little daughter about four years of age — a, 

[133] 



HOW TO REST 



charming little girl, sprightly, overflowing with 
the joy of health and absolutely free from any 
inheritance which would make for nervous in- 
stability. 

Her parents, especially the mother, were of 
artistic natures, musical and colorful. Every- 
thing in the house from the kitchen to the little 
girl's bedroom was pleasing to the eye — not a 
false note could be noticed. One evening there 
was dancing and general jollification. The 
whole house resounded with merriment and har- 
mony. Someone remarked to the hostess, 
" Won't we wake up baby? " 

"Never!" she replied. " Cecile is accus- 
tomed to it ; she sleeps like a top through all the 
noise we make; she never seems to notice it." 

Upstairs to the child's room went several 
young women to put on their wraps and over- 
shoes prior to departure. I asked permission on 
some plausible excuse to go into the .room, and 
being somewhat of a privileged character in 
these matters, I sat down by the child's bed. 

She was, as the mother had stated, apparently 
undisturbed by all the talk and laughter. But 
observing closely I noticed that while she was 
unconsciously unaware of the noise, subcon- 

[134] 



HOW TO REST 



sciously her little nerves were receiving dis- 
agreeable messages. Her sweet little mouth 
twitched when an unusual peal of laughter 
broke out. One of the girls had a harsh voice, 
the only break in the harmonious tones of the 
company. When she called out to one of her 
friends I saw the little child toss her head and 
turn over as though trying to avoid the disturb- 
ing tones. I stayed some time with the child 
after the young women had left, and noticed 
that it took some minutes for her to rest calmly 
and sleep quietly. 

I had a pup whose mother was a very highly 
bred dog — too highly bred for use in the field, 
she was so nervous and sensitive. The first 
summer he enjoyed life we were camping near 
a village whose one church had a cracked bell 
which was rung upon the slightest excuse. A 
brush fire at night, the departure of a bridal 
couple, calls to prayer meetings, Sunday school, 
church, oyster suppers, and when the youths 
wanted to be " village cut-ups," were excuses 
for sending out the chilling tones of the raucous 
bell. 

It was too much for the nerves of the pup. 
If he was sound asleep he would moan, shiver 

[135] 



HOW TO REST 



and shake. Then he would wake up, sneak out 
to the woods and render the most mournful and 
pitiable sounds which ever came from a nerv- 
ously disturbed dog. The conditions of his 
puppyhood ruined that dog. He was always 
listening for some slight noise. The sound of a 
locomotive whistle, the noise of a gun, the horn 
of an automobile, the music from a phonograph, 
sent him to cover, where he would remain shak- 
ing for an hour. 

The millions of brain and nerve cells remain- 
ing dormant while developing in the child may 
not to our casual observation require the most 
careful treatment. But very recent studies and 
research show that in this matter of keeping the 
sensitive but inactive nerves and brain stuff free 
from external shocks of all kinds lies the surety 
of bringing to maturity in full strength the 
potentialities of the individual. 

A child is always living a dual life, .psycho- 
logically speaking. There is the purely physi- 
cal where play, sleep and objective learning 
make up its life as we see it. There is the 
subjective or subconscious life where all the ele- 
ments which in later life make for thinking, rea- 
soning, doing, will-power, judgment morality 

[136] 



HOW TO REST 



and sexuality lie awaiting their awaking. There 
are color centers, tone group cells, cells where 
sleep the inherent sense of right and wrong, in- 
dividual tastes and individual character, all in 
the making. Over these higher centers of man's 
development the child has no controlling inter- 
est or power. They are, nevertheless, affected 
and controlled by its environment, through the 
examples of the grown people around it, by 
color associations and voice meanings, by words 
of impatience and visual images unfit for its 
age and understanding. 

Any one or all of these undeveloped attributes 
and factors for a complete personality may be 
distorted or disturbed by wrong and careless 
treatment. It is not the personal relations with 
mother or nurse, friends or companions, but the 
surroundings, sights, sounds, and character as 
well as attitude of those adults it comes in con- 
tact with, which affects the future of the child. 

To go back to our little girl who, while 
sleeping and apparently unconscious of all the 
noise around her, yet was affected. A year 
after the episode the mother consulted me about 
her restlessness, her passion for destroying 
everything given to her. Picture books would 

[137] 



HOW TO REST 



be hurriedly glanced at then torn up. Nerv- 
ously she would tear page after page, tossing 
all upon the floor with glee. She could^not sit 
still two consecutive moments. She would 
build towers of blocks for the sole purpose of 
knocking them down. 

Her appetite was good, but she could not 
finish a meal without wanting to leave her chair 
and run about. Two or three runs about the 
room, and she would return to finish her meal. 
She was always smiling or laughing, never 
petulant or cross, no more disobedient than the 
normal child of her age, and would willingly go 
to bed or take her afternoon rest. But after 
an hour's sleep, the night's sleep, she would 
become wide-awake and sitting up would listen 
for some expected noise or music. After an 
hour's wakefulness of this nature she would 
drop off to sleep for the night. 

The cause for this state of affairs was evident 
to me and should be to the reader, so it will not 
be necessary to bore you with the psychological 
details. You see that as she grew older — or as 
the brain cells became a little more developed — 
there was a closer connection between her con- 
scious and subconscious life. Permit such a 

[138] 



HOW TO REST 



condition with its underlying causes to con- 
tinue, and when this child reaches womanhood 
we will have a restless, uncontrollable, hys- 
terical woman. And when she has reached forty 
years of age and is unmarried — Good Lord, 
deliver us! 

At once the child was kept free from the 
causes which had brought it to its restless state. 
Instead of strange voices ringing forward and 
backward over its sensitive little brain; instead 
of its hearing centers being constantly disturbed 
while sleeping, we had quietude and her loving 
mother crooning hypnotic tones until all centers 
and cell groups were left to absorb food and 
grow. 

You never know just what potentialities re- 
side in your child. Its likes and dislikes, its 
predilection for certain kinds of stories, its de- 
sires for quietude or tendency to laziness, its 
hazy sense of right and wrong, are not the most 
important matters for you to observe and worry 
over. 

These are matters which later on can be used 
to guide you in the training and teaching. The 
one important matter for you to attend to is 
that of seeing that the dormant factors in 

[139] 



HOW TO REST 



the child's brain do not receive unpleasant 
shocks. 

Have the child's bed and playroom in har- 
monious colors. Let nothing be so striking to 
the eye that it compels attention. Don't paper 
the walls with atrocious pictures from fairy 
books or the tales of Mother Goose. It does 
not matter just what you cover the walls with 
so long as it does not stimulate or unduly at- 
tract. It is similar to dressing in good taste. 

The man or woman who is dressed in good 
taste wears nothing which by itself attracts 
attention. It is the whole ensemble, the har- 
monious placing of colors and fabrics so that 
the individual stands out as a personality, and 
not as a figure which you remember because of 
some startling detail in color or cut. 

Ragtime, loud, brassy music, inane songs, 
sloppy and nauseous stuff from Tinpan Alley, 
should never be heard by a child. The average 
child can be led to enjoy real music if it hears 
it. The little girl can be so environed and her 
mentality so guided that the sensational movies 
will bring disgust to her and keep her away from 
these thought-destroying pictures. 

If a father and mother knew that their do- 
[ 140] 



HOW TO REST 



mestic squabbles, word-throwing, bickerings and 
disputes were to be filmed and then shown in 
two reels to their children, they would always 
be on their guard. 

One day a mother hearing what sounded like 
a violent quarrel in the nursery rushed to the 
room. There at the toy table sat her daughter, 
six years of age, and her son of eight years of 
age. Just as she opened the door she heard the 
little chap swear. The shock stopped her on the 
threshold, and the children, not observing their 
mother, went on. 

What the shocked mother heard and wit- 
nessed was an almost exact reproduction of a 
scene which had been enacted that morning at 
the breakfast table with the children as spec- 
tators. 

When the mother had pulled herself together 
she impatiently took the little boy by the ears 
and in no sweet tone said: "Don't let me 
ever hear you use such words again. Never 
talk to sister in that way. What kind of boys 
have you been playing with to learn such lan- 
guage? And you, Margaret; are you not 
ashamed of yourself to talk back to your brother 
in that way! " 

[141] 



HOW TO REST 



" Why, mama," replied the little girl, " me 
and Bobby was just playing we was married. 
We was at breakfast having our fight before 
Bobby went to his office." 

It is not because so many mothers have no 
self-control, not because fathers are ill-tempered, 
that children are given brain food of an injuri- 
ous nature at the table. It is because parents 
do not understand that the brain of a child is a 
film of an unknown number of reels. It is a 
more sensitive film than the chemical one, and it 
never fails to photograph upon the mind of the 
child the smallest detail. At this age there are 
few outside " locations " for the mental film to 
reproduce words and actions; so it instantane- 
ously reproduces the scenes thoughtlessly put 
before it. 

The very best brain food for the child is 
that given by the patience of the mother. The 
very best nerve developer is that coming from 
the sympathy and understanding of parents. If 
at the dinner table the child cannot hear soft 
words, kind speech, witness mutual patience and 
be free from the atmosphere of gossip and 
scandal, it is far better off with some ignorant 
but non-disturbing nurse. 

[142] 



HOW TO REST 



I know that quite frequently domestic squab- 
bles release a tension and in their way are a 
form of relaxation. But children should never 
be permitted to mentally photograph them. If 
so, some day these negatives will be pushed 
upward from the lower brain and then we won- 
der where that young woman could have " in- 
herited " such a nasty character. For the fact 
is that nothing which has ever been registered 
upon the brain films is ever washed out. Then 
again, when circumstances or conditions cause it 
to be exhibited it usually has been touched up 
and colored by later experiences and contact 
with others of the same nature. 

A little room made noiseless, hung in red, two 
exits, light in the ceiling and no throwable arti- 
cles around, should be built into every house 
where loving couples are to live. When it is 
necessary or the mutual impulse rises, the 
mother and father can retire to this red room 
and here get into action with no danger of the 
scenes being reproduced upon the sensitive 
brains of their children. 

Mothers too often unconsciously starve their 
children's brains by unmeaning impatience. 
Then, also, most mothers are still under too 

[143] 



HOW TO REST 



many superstitions and old wives' tales about 
wet feet, drafts, sitting on the damp grass, 
" catching cold " if the boy's coat is off the first 
day the ballground can be played upon. 

" Johnny, come right in. Come in this in- 
stant. Do you hear me? " 

" Oh, mother, can't I stay and play — just one 
more bat? " 

" Come in right away, I say. I told you if 
you took off your coat or sat on the grass you 
would have to come in. You want to catch 
your death of cold?" 

Now, this sort of treatment of a ten-year-old 
lad is all wrong. First is your impatience. It 
has communicated itself to the boy. This is the 
reason he hesitates and argues. When he comes 
in he is upset for a while. This means that his 
brain has thoughts which do it no good, but real 
harm. There is an upsetting of continuity. 
You want him to get at his lesson or some other 
thing you call his duty. Meanwhile he is think- 
ing of the chance he had to swipe that ball and 
make a run if you had not made him come in. 
Then, before all the other boys, too. This 
stings, hurts any self-respecting lad. 

If the boy cannot keep still that evening, if 
[144] 






HOW TO REST 



he does not care to hear you read to him or to 
read himself; tells his sister to stop her "yap- 
pin' " or " thumpin' th' pianna," it is because 
there is a struggle going on in his little brain 
cells. 

You thought, of course, you were doing the 
best for your child. You were doing your very 
worst. Boys in normal health do not catch cold 
because they take off their coats even in the 
winter snows. They do not get pneumonia by 
sitting down on the wet grass. No, not if they 
sit down up to their waists and are mentally 
and physically occupied in catching muskrats or 
" shiners." Boys don't catch any kind of colds 
or diseases when you let them alone to take 
care of themselves. A healthy boy can go all 
day with wet feet and be the better for it. 
Leave him alone, and when he has to remain 
still or comes indoors he will dry or change his 
footwear. 

If you have given the boy the brain food he 
needs — sympathy and understanding; seen that 
the magazines and books which enter the home 
are interesting but clean; kept yourself always 
ready to answer questions even of an intimate 
nature, and never embarrassed him while he is 

[145] 



HOW TO REST 



at decent games or sports, you will bring up a 
boy whose brain will develop steadily and nor- 
mally and not be cut off now and then by 
thoughts which make for discontent and rest- 
lessness. 

The understanding of the true boy during his 
adolescence, as well as that of the girl during 
the same period, is too important to deal with 
in a chapter or two. Adolescence is the vital 
period in the development of both sexes. The 
training of the sexes part at this point in their 
lives. I shall leave for a future work this 
supremely important subject to all parents. 



[ 146 ] 



CHAPTER IX 

THE HIDDEN LABORATORIES OF 
THE BODY AND THEIR ASSUMED 
EFFECTS 

There are many mysteries still remaining in 
the human body and brain about which we now 
can only theorize. That there are hidden labora- 
tories which turn out material affecting the 
mental and nervous life of us all is evident from 
some of the marvelous traits and conditions 
observed by the scientist and thinking man. 
Back of all we know about personality, its vari- 
ous phases of duality, its changes from nor- 
mality to morbidity, the puzzle to discover in 
some cases just which is the real personality of 
an individual, and all the multifarious whims 
and humors of men and women of genius and 
talent, there still remain in every man and 
woman distinct characteristics immediately rec- 
ognized by animals and by races of a distinct 
ethnic difference. 

[147] 



HOW TO REST 



The white man of pure blood instinctively 
recognizes the peculiar — to him — odor of the 
African. The Chinese state that the white man 
has his own peculiar odor. It is reported upon 
reliable authority that the Oriental who has not 
been brought into intimate contact with the 
white man can detect his presence merely 
through the odor he emanates, while the African 
scents him afar off, as do the wild beasts. 

The dog recognizes a human friend or foe 
solely through the odor of his skin — or the scent 
pouring through the human skin. He will ap- 
proach carefully within a few feet, and the 
information he then receives determines whether 
he shall go closer and make a certainty of the 
question. If you remain passive the dog goes 
to you in a real state of neutrality and then 
sniffs for a few seconds. Just what your indi- 
vidual odor tells him you may perceive by his 
actions. If you are one he knows may be 
trusted, he looks up to your face in a friendly 
manner and by his tail wigwags a merry wel- 
come. If there is some telltale message from 
one of the hidden laboratories in your body — or 
perhaps the remnants of some past evil in your 
prehistoric days, who knows? — he will warily 

[148] 



HOW TO REST 



back away, tail down, until he is at a safe dis- 
tance, then with an ominous growl leave you 
alone. You seldom can make friends — that is, 
be a real and trusting friend — to that dog. 
Something he has discovered in your nature 
warns him you are not to be trusted. Now, in 
spite of this dog's distrust of you, you may 
like dogs in a passive way, and would not will- 
ingly harm them. But the fact stands out that 
something radiating from you tells him to be- 
ware. 

There are some women who cannot wear 
flowers without these flowers immediately wilt- 
ing. There are women who apparently give out 
from their bodies real poisons to certain flowers. 
These same women seem to have no effect upon 
certain other flowers. It is the same in cultivat- 
ing plants in the house or room. You often 
hear a woman say, " How do you make your 
plants bloom in your house? I have tried in 
every way, but my plants die — they just wilt 
away. The more attention I give them the 
quicker they seem to lose life." 

There are beautiful women who apparently 
are deadly to pearls. Let one of these wear a 
string of pearls constantly next her skin, and 

[149] 



HOW TO REST 



in time each pearl has lost its luster, sheen and 
life. 

Pearls, of course, are the by-product of a liv- 
ing organism — the cast-off material of organic 
activity. Is the pearl really a sentient thing? 
Is it still a feeling, living being? Flowers are. 
Are pearls affected by the unknown elements of 
the human body reaching them through the skin? 
Are we unconscious murderers? It is an inter- 
esting question, is it not? 

It certainly is when we know that just the 
reverse condition exists — that there are women 
who can revivify pearls and flowers. There are 
women in the capitals of Europe who make a 
profession of giving new life to pearls. They 
apparently nourish, warm and mother them. 

When a string of pearls has been worn by a 
woman whose mysterious personality has dead- 
ened them; when they have lost luster and life; 
when they commence to show the wrinkles of 
some sort of starvation, these professional pearl 
renewers place them next to their skins and 
keep them there foT some months. 

The change in these pearls is astounding. 
They have come back to life, shining, smiling, 
unwrinkled. 

[150] 



HOW TO REST 



I know a woman who cannot wear a corsage 
of fresh roses fifteen minutes without these roses 
wilting to the dead point. Under the same con- 
ditions and surroundings — to be exact, at the 
same table — I have seen another woman take 
them and wear them in the identical manner and 
bring them back to life in fifteen minutes. She 
has worn them to her room, kept them there 
overnight, and upon placing them next to her 
skin in the morning kept them fresh all the next 
day. 

Even under the most modern tests known to 
psychological and physiological science, no dis- 
tinct difference can be discovered between the 
natures of these women. Both are mothers, nor- 
mal, lovable and loving, about the same age and 
apparent tastes. 

However, from general and somewhat de- 
tailed observation of the women who murder 
pearls, I am inclined to believe they are invari- 
ably selfish women, cold in their friendships and 
indifferent in their marital life, and as a rule 
childless. Those who warm and revivify the 
pearls are vivacious, ardent, patient and domi- 
nated by maternal instincts. 

There are many cases, which I am inclined to 
[151] 



HOW TO REST 



believe are controlled by these hidden forces or 
elements, that are a worrying puzzle to them- 
selves. Some women in offices work under a 
peculiar stress and anxiety which in time works 
havoc with their chances for success or even con- 
tinuance. 

They are constantly brain- tired and nervous. 
They are not affected consciously by the men 
around them, they try to do their work simply 
as one of the cogs in the business machine; they 
live decently and modestly, and never a word 
of gossip or scandal about them could ever be, 
or is ever, heard. 

I had a young woman of twenty-two years of 
age appeal to me for help. She worked in an 
office with about six other young women. It 
was an architect's office where there were sev- 
eral men always working. 

She had been there three years, liked the work 
and had been promoted several times. Her sis- 
ter worked alongside her, and both lived with 
their widowed mother and went and came al- 
ways together. 

Her sister being taken into the private office, 
a middle-aged spinster took her place. This 
latter woman had little to say to her neighbor 

[152] 



HOW TO REST 



at the next desk; was devoted entirely to her 
work and to all appearances was just a normal, 
self-supporting woman. 

Gradually the young woman found she could 
not concentrate. Her head " bothered " her 
and she commenced to dread going to the office. 
She did not understand why she should feel so 
miserable. Always taking care of her health, of 
good inheritance, easy hours of work, good pay, 
nothing to worry about, yet she was rapidly 
losing her grip and self-confidence. 

She was thoroughly examined by two emi- 
nent physicians and absolutely nothing could 
be found for the cause of her distress. 

She finally reached the stage where her limbs 
would tremble, knees jerk; head ache so much 
that she would have to leave and go home. 
Feeling well the next day she would take her 
place at her typewriter and go along for an 
hour or so, when the upset would again com- 
mence. 

She reached that desperate stage where she 
decided to leave her place and try something 
else. One physician told her the strain was too 
much for her — up to this time she had grown 
happy and rounded under it — another said she 

[153] 



HOW TO REST 



needed a long rest, another that it was merely 
a phase of young womanhood and would pass 
off. 

But she knew better. What troubled her 
most was she could not discover any reason for 
her condition. 

The day she decided to terminate her work 
the woman who worked next to her went off on 
her vacation. That day the girl got through her 
work without any trouble, so she decided to 
remain. Every day saw an improvement in 
her condition and in ten days she was again 
herself. 

When she returned to work one Monday the 
middle-aged spinster was at her desk. She 
spoke a kind word of greeting to the young 
woman, then turned to her work. 

Almost at once a great change came over our 
young woman. Her knees shook so she could 
hear them come together. Hot flushes came 
to her face; concentration was impossible, her 
head throbbed, her hands trembled. Fearing a 
complete collapse she left for home. Here she 
remained for a week, recovered completely and 
returned to work. But just as soon as she went 
near the other woman there came over her an 

[154] 



HOW TO REST 



awful fear. Nothing tangible; she could not 
tell what she feared, but realized that this time 
there would be a scene and collapse, and she 
fled the place. 

Now, she instinctively knew that there was 
something about " that woman," as she ex- 
pressed it, which affected her. 

She was right. What was it? I often wished 
I could have secured a necklace of pearls full 
of life and hung it upon the scrawny bosom of 
" that woman " ! 

The cure? The girl secured another position 
and is again a normal, healthy woman. 

There are many conditions of a hidden nature 
which prevent proper or successful continuance 
of one's daily work that are mistaken for " nerv- 
ousness," brain fatigue and undue worry. 
Periodical headaches, or just the uncomfortable 
feeling in the afternoon or evening that one has 
a sensitive forehead, frequently bother a woman. 
A school teacher finds and comes to expect head- 
aches or a feeling of mental lassitude about the 
end of the week. It is of course accounted for 
by saying the air of the schoolrooms, the wear 
and tear of her vocation, the strain of keeping 
up to the standards placed by the school au- 

[155] 



HOW TO REST 



thorities and many other natural conditions are 
telling upon the woman. 

Working girls have attacks of soreness in 
their ankles or knees. It may be a " stiff neck " 
or sore throat, with headaches or pains in the 
small of the back. Sometimes a woman of 
middle age will have attacks of feeling faint and 
be unfit to go on with her work for several days. 
She apparently recovers and goes on until an- 
other attack lays her up. After each attack 
she finds herself with lessened powers of resist- 
ance and an increasing inability to concentrate 
upon her work — house or shop. 

As a rule all these symptoms in young and 
middle-aged are said to indicate some disturb- 
ance of the physiological functions of woman. 
When in doubt about headaches or pains, hys- 
teria or nervousness, it has become almost a 
stereotyped statement to say, " Well, it's too 
bad, of course. But woman has to suffer for 
stealing that apple. It is so laid down in the 
Good Book." 

Women have to put up with a lot of mis- 
understanding and struggles to get along no 
matter what their positions are, — rich or poor, 
married or unmarried, militant or loving, — and 

[156] 



HOW TO REST 



to fasten upon them blame, or to ignore a care- 
ful consideration of physical states which in man 
are at once attended to, is not only injustice but 
shows ignorance of medical science. 

Women know what is not the matter with 
them when they suffer from headaches and joint 
pains. Just what is the matter with them, of 
course they do not know. If they have been 
told by a physician that they must expect such 
little troubles it is no wonder they take to patent 
medicines and find temporary relief from the 
alcohol and narcotics always to be found in these 
physiological blinders. 

These sorts and kinds of pain under considera- 
tion are generally the effects of germs and their 
poisons remaining in the hidden recesses of 
the body. The germs of rheumatism, the poi- 
sons of scarlet fever or measles — almost all of 
the fevers and affections of microbic origin — ■ 
are the causes for these headaches, pains, nerv- 
ousness and mental restlessness. If one is mid- 
dle-aged and had an attack of diphtheria when 
a child — before the wonderful discovery of anti- 
toxin — the effects of this awful disease may 
remain with you. 

If one had an attack of joint inflammation 

[157] 



HOW TO REST 



when a child or suffered from inflammatory 
rheumatism, headaches and mental disturbances 
may follow when you are in the active period 
of your life. These conditions may go on to a 
real attack of insanity. Then, instead of look- 
ing into the history of the diseases of child- 
hood, you are frightened by the questions re- 
garding your parents, aunts, cousins, uncles, 
grandfathers. Any one of them insane? Any 
particular nervousness in the family? Any one 
of your relatives who went wrong? 

Ah, there it is! " Constitutional psychopathic 
inferiority," and if you are only a little muddled 
in your poisoned brain, it brings a fright which 
may be of lasting injury. But if you, with your 
aching and throbbing brain, do not hear the 
questions and answers, your family do, and ac- 
cept the verdict — " Inherited insanity." 

Inherited bosh! Constitutional poisoning 
from neglect to thoroughly clean out the body 
and keep it clean after an attack of inflamma- 
tory rheumatism or some other germinal in- 
fection. 

Remember this fact : There is not a family ex- 
isting in which if you search two or three genera- 
tions and their collaterals, there cannot be found 

[158] 



HOW TO REST 



one or two who showed some form of mental 
disturbance or whose " peculiarities " marked 
them as different from the average person. 
Then again, a decade or two ago, many were 
sent to " insane hospitals " — a cruel and mean- 
ingless term — who today would never be con- 
sidered as mentally incurable and who would 
receive treatment for temporary illness of 
nerves or brain. 

If you suffer from unaccountable headaches, 
if you find your memory dull and troublesome, 
if you are losing the power to concentrate, if 
you are getting worried over your condition; 
do not inquire about the family history but 
about the diseases of your childhood. 

You discover that you had a very bad attack 
of inflammatory rheumatism when you were a 
child. You were skating and fell into the icy 
water, caught cold and rheumatism followed. 
The doctor said it was nothing, but warned your 
mother never to let you get wet again. The 
local trouble being treated — it would have dis- 
appeared anyway — you were allowed to grow 
up with the germs of rheumatism hiding away in 
some secret and undisturbed place until a fine 

[159] 



HOW TO REST 



opportunity occurred when they could swim out 
and sport in your brain. 

Just what these opportunities are one never 
knows exactly. Overfatigue, motherhood, men- 
tal or moral shocks, carelessness in little habits, 
improper breathing and breathing contaminated 
air, are certainly some of the invitations sent to 
the germs to come out and play. 

Getting wet had little if anything to do with 
the onset of the rheumatic attack. It may have 
aided, but even this is an open question. 

Decayed teeth, foul tonsils, breathing germ- 
laden air, are the real causes for the germs enter- 
ing your body, searching out a luscious joint 
and there having a "joy ride " and tissues to 
dine upon. 

When you have the headaches coming and 
going, when you feel that your brain does not 
work with its accustomed ease and concentration 
is burdensome, don't worry about it. Go to a 
responsible physician and tell him all you know 
or can find out about childhood diseases. Then 
he can go to work and drive out the mischief 
makers and put you all right again. 

All right, worry about yourself absent, mar- 
ried, and a happy mother, these past troubles 

[160] 



HOW TO REST 



will be found to have been a blessing. For 
now when your child gets wet, or the boy goes 
fishing and falls in, you know you need not 
worry. You need not worry because you have 
seen that the children's teeth have no cavities to 
harbor germs, their tonsils are kept clean, they 
have been taught how to breathe through the 
nose, keep their bowels empty and bathe every 
morning. 

So you see that the brain food one needs in 
most of the conditions which cause worry and 
mental distress is only the truth about the 
human body and how it may be affected by 
ignorance and neglect of the many diseases of 
childhood. 

These diseases are entirely unnecessary and 
avoidable in your children. That harmful idea 
that all children must go through certain courses 
of infections and inflictions has resulted in thou- 
sands of grown people today suffering mental 
misery, bodily pain and inability to accom- 
plish all they might accomplish. But we all 
should be thankful for this state of affairs, for 
our children and their children are to be free 
from these obstacles to fulfillment of personal 
abilities. 

[161] 



CHAPTER X 

THE BEST BRAIN FOOD IS PRAC- 
TICAL FAITH IN ONESELF 

From the workaday point of view the most 
nutritious and lasting brain food is faith in one- 
self. It is food that must be constantly sup- 
plied and digested by the work of personal effort 
toward worth-while attainment. 

There is a faith in one's mother, there is the 
orthodox faith of the church, there is that faith 
which comes from the experience of the thinker 
which overtops all others. All other founda- 
tions upon which to build success in life are 
unstable because they have been built by others 
and accepted upon their statements. When 
trouble and worry come there are a trembling 
and a wabbling because you do not know just 
which way to turn for self -aid. 

The childhood faith instilled by teachers and 
mothers is a beautiful ideal, but when the youth 
or young man gets out into the world he soon 

[162] 



HOW TO REST 



sees upon what weak and unstable material it is 
founded. If he is a normal young man of intel- 
lect he soon doubts all religion and the reality 
of God. 

From atheism to agnosticism is the usual road 
he travels, and the latter is a long, long road. 
But if he retains faith in himself he soon com- 
mences to think that back of this self- faith there 
is some power or force aiding him. He will see 
that whenever he acts against his conscience or 
does that which he knows is false to his faith 
in himself, no matter how great the temporary 
success, there is a reaction, a revolt, he feels a 
new kind of self-abasement, and this starts a 
new period of thought. 

True faith in oneself is in reality a faith in 
some guiding and controlling power — call it 
what you will. 

This is the real brain and nerve food for 
man. It causes him to say I will. It enables 
him to do. It takes up room in his brain 
and displaces " I wish I could do that." 
It drives out that age-old and injurious atti- 
tude of placing the blame for failure upon 
others. 

" Well, if I had his money, I could be a 
[163] 



HOW TO REST 



success." Or, " I never had the chance. I 
never had the education that man had. If I had 
half of his education I would have made twice 
his pile." 

Can't you see these fellows as they try to 
reach the foot-rail? 

Even in that long and often discouraging hunt 
to find yourself, faith in yourself is absolutely 
necessary. I do not believe a man will ever 
fail to find what he is on this world to do, if 
he will keep faith in himself. The whole trouble 
is that most of those who fail give out on the trail. 
They curse their bad luck and laugh at all kinds 
of faith. 

Then comes brain poison in several ways. 
Lack or loss of faith in oneself means a lower- 
ing of physiological energy. There is a tear- 
ing down instead of building up. Discourage- 
ment increases the heartbeats or at least brings 
irregularity, because there is no steady applica- 
tion of nervous or mental energy. Whatever 
job the individual secures is taken only as a 
makeshift and there can be no continuity of 
thought or spur to ambition. 

Tell such a man that no matter what he is 
doing, do it with a hearty spirit and do it in his 

[164] 



HOW TO REST 



very best manner, and he will reply: "Oh, 
what's the use? " 

" Oh, what's the use? " sends more men down 
than whiskey. Aside from the congenital de- 
generate, and we are dealing only with normal 
man, "Oh, what's the use?" sends men to 
whiskey; not whiskey makes the man say, " Oh, 
1, what's the use?" 

The average American man believes he is a 
failure if he has not made a lot of money by the 
time he is forty years of age. And right here 
lies the trouble. Here is the cause for so many 
men mentally and physically failing after forty 
years of age. 

Forty years of age is the period for a man to 
put to use his knowledge and experience. It 
is the age where faith in himself should take 
hold and carry him to success in some way. But 
if his one, sole, dominant idea is that success 
means money, then many will fail of success. 

A young man would like to be doctor or 
artist, but he has been brought up to see the 
power of money. He realizes that medicine or 
art are not by themselves money-making ca- 
reers. He starts out young to make money. 
There are teasing thoughts of another career, 

[165] 



HOW TO REST 



but he tries to drive them out and as money 
comes in he soon finds false relaxation in " hav- 
ing a good time." 

In such a man there is no brain food or nerve 
nourishment being furnished — only expended. 
Of course had he possessed an innate talent and 
passion for medicine or art, there would have 
been nothing but a daily supply of brain food 
through self-faith and work. It is possible 
that had he been brought up in a different en- 
vironment than that of money worshipers the 
wavering tastes might have solidified into a 
decided one. 

I had a man brought to me brain-starved 
through just this idea that money was the first 
requisite for success. He was upon the verge 
of self-destruction. He had absolutely no faith 
in himself, and laughed at the idea of a faith 
in any great Force. 

He was forty-three years of age. He had 
just received his Ph.D. from one of the highest 
universities in the land, and now it was about 
as much use to him as a pick would be to an 
infant. He had been recommended for a pro- 
fessorship in a large college, but it was denied 
him. The excuse was they wanted a young man 

[166] 



HOW TO REST 



to grow up with the college. I believe the real 
reason was the self-evidence of lack of full faith 
in himself. 

His whole trouble was the American idea — 
money first. He had been in Wall Street up to 
the age of forty. Then having " made his pile," 
he started to take up his watered ambition to be 
a scholar and professor. 

Twenty years in Wall Street does not fur- 
nish much brain food or nerve force to be laid 
up for intellectual life and pursuits to be fol- 
lowed after one has reached forty years of age. 
Hence, while this man was of sufficient intellec- 
tual force to secure his degree, the strain of a 
new brain output told. 

He had fed his bank account for twenty years 
and starved his brain of necessary food and ex- 
pended all his nervous capital. 

He was a complete wreck, and there was no 
professional career ahead of him. 

It seemed impossible to stimulate self-con- 
fidence or faith in a force which would help 
him. This of course meant despondency. 
Despondency means interference with physio- 
logical functions. His liver accumulated more 

[167] 



HOW TO REST 



poison than it could get rid of, the kidneys 
became sluggish, the adrenals apparently puz- 
zled just what to do. 

The end? Got a job as translator for a for- 
eign house at twelve dollars a week. And he 
and his patient wife needed every cent of it. 

How, with all his money made in Wall 
Street? Well, this is the humor of it — for me, 
not for him. He really did pitch in when he 
went to the university and became a true 
scholar. This meant neglect of his investments, 
and they got away from him. 

Had he started as a youth with full faith in 
himself to make a notable scholar, brain food 
would have been daily furnished and at forty 
years of age he would have been placed for life 
with a living salary and a long life of health 
and happiness before him. He did not have 
full faith in himself; thought he needed the aid 
of that false god — money. Had he had faith 
in the real God, that if teaching was his ambi- 
tion and he would apply all his mental and 
physical forces to that one idea, he would be 
aided and guided, the world would have been 
better for his influence. 

So in conclusion we find that we are back to 
[168] 



HOW TO REST 



the old advice for health and happiness: "Man 
know thyself! " 

But we must take this advice in its modern 
meaning. Knowing yourself means knowing 
the kind of brain food and nerve rest your indi- 
vidual character and body require. It means 
knowing that worries and anxieties starve the 
brain and poison the nerves, but that also there 
is always a way to discover the causes for these 
worries and anxieties. 

And this way is to face at once the causes, to 
act at once upon the first indication or signs of 
mental or nerve fatigue. 

Don't procrastinate; don't say, "Oh! it will 
pass off in a day or two." It will not. It will 
increase in a day or two. 

The brain fatigue, the restlessness, the feel- 
ing that every minute at your work you have 
to force yourself to continue, is the signal to go 
and lie down and relax. 

Every man and woman doing brain or intel- 
lectual work — and this means office and com- 
mercial work — needs to relax an hour every day. 
The laborer and factory people have their hours 
and days for rest. You need days of rest, also, 
but you must also have hours of relaxation. 

[169] 



HOW TO REST 



Don't worry about kidney trouble if you find 
they are throwing off more fluid than usual. 
Mental application is the cause of this. Now 
you can see how relaxing mind and body rests 
the kidneys. If you work your brain steadily 
for many hours, concentrate upon your work to 
the exclusion of all other thoughts — and this is 
the only kind of concentration — your heart is 
pumping rapidly through the effects of your 
nervous pitch. This sends an excess of blood to 
the tiny arteries of the kidneys. This means an 
overactivity in these organs. 

If, instead of relaxing when the work is over, 
you take up some other form of excitement — 
cocktail or tango-ing — the heart keeps on its 
rapid work, the kidneys are overworked, and in 
time you are brought face to face with a serious 
if not fatal disease. 

An hour a day of relaxing will keep the kid- 
neys healthy all through a long life. A day's 
rest once a week will store up reserve energy for 
a five days' steady pull upon all your forces. 

Faith in yourself when you are helping your- 
self, and faith in a great Force back of all your, 
efforts, are the pure extracts for Brain Food 
and the real nourishment for tired nerves. 

[170] 



The following pages 
describe briefly a 
number of peculiarly 
interesting books 




EDWARD J. CLODE 

Publisher 
NEW YORK 



BOOKS THAT WILL HELP YOU 
and THOSE YOU WANT TO HELP 

SHORT CUTS IN FIGURES. 

By A. FREDERICK COLLINS. 

12mo. Cloth $1.00 

Figuring 1 is the key-note of business and a first aid 
to the memory. To figure easily, rapidly, and ac- 
curately, the work must be done by the most approved 
short-cut methods. Anyone who can do ordinary 
arithmetic can use them. And making use of them 
jacks up the power of your mind and hence multiplies 
your efficiency. This book tells just how it is done. 

FROM EXISTENCE TO LIFE: The Science 
of Self-Consciousness. 

By JAMES PORTER MILLS. 12mo. Cloth $1.50 

The science of self-consciousness, formulated cor- 
rectly and made use of intelligently, should satisfy 
the mind and comfort the heart in all the emer- 
gencies of self-conscious life, enabling a man to "hold 
on his way and grow stronger and stronger." 



THE WAY. 

By JAMES PORTER MILLS. 12 mo. Cloth $1.25 

This is to all intents and purposes a second volume 
of "Illumination," and is, like the latter, a book to 
use rather than to read, and its study, if accompanied 
by meditation, will be found of most valuable as- 
sistance in the attainment of the higher consciousness. 



ILLUMINATION. 

By JAMES PORTER MILLS. 12mo. Cloth $1.00 

True meditation is an active means of illuminating 
the soul-consciousness and of breaking up the habit 
of falling ill, the tendency to depression, and to un- 
toward emotions generally. 

NAMES, DATES AND NUMBERS: A Sys- 
tem of Numerology. 

By ROY PAGE WALTON. 12mo. Cloth 60o 

Here is your mariner's chart and compass. Read 

NAMES, DATES and NUMBERS. A few minutes of 
careful study will throw a new light upon that Self 
that is yourself and will open the way to accomplish- 
ments undreamed of heretofore. 



BOOKS THAT WILL HELP YOU 
and THOSE YOU WANT TO HELP 



BREATHE AND BE WELL. 

By WILLIAM LEE HOWARD, M.D. 

12mo. Cloth $1.00 

Finer color, fewer wrinkles, weight better propor- 
tioned, alert carriage and springy step. Good for all 
people who are not confirmed invalids and cripples. 
All without diet, drugs or apparatus. 

HOW TO LIVE LONG. 

By WILLIAM LEE HOWARD, M.D. 

12mo. Cloth $1.00 
Dr. Howard shows how human life can be pro- 
longed and men and women physically and mentally 
productive beyond the usual number of years — it is a 
matter of individual hygiene, especially mental hy- 
giene, not set rules for living. 

BATHING FOR HEALTH: A Simple Way 
to Physical Fitness. 

By EDWIN F. BOWERS, M.D. $1.00 net 

Rarely does a physician write so entertainingly and 
so sensibly as does Doctor Bowers in this volume. 
He presents here just the information you need in 
order to keep yourself and your family in robust 
health. 

As a cure for what ails us there is hardly anything 
that excels the proper kind of a bath — properly taken. 

WHAT RIGHT THINKING WILL DO. 

By CHRISTIAN D. LARSON. 12mo. Cloth 80o 

A certain mental state makes your body ill — and 
other states make it well — proving that thought power 
can be employed to better our condition of life. Mr. 
Larson's book shows just how this condition can be 
brought about. 

STEPS IN HUMAN PROGRESS. 

By CHRISTIAN D. LARSON. 12mo. Cloth $1.00 

An exposition of the means whereby humanity is 
climbing to higher things — Self, Truth, Spirit, these 
are the headings under which Mr. Larson divides the 
book, and in a simple, direct way holds out a help- 
ing hand to those who desire to achieve the very best 
in life. 

THE GOOD SIDE OF CHRISTIAN 
SCIENCE 

By CHRISTIAN D. LARSON. 12mo. Cloth 80c 

No one qualified to judge has ever denied the basic 
value of Christian Science. Mr. Larson has pruned 
away all the apparent mystery surrounding it and tells 
just what is good in it and what that good is 
capable of. 

3 



BOOKS THAT WILL HELP YOU 
and THOSE YOU WANT TO HELP 

THE KEY TO HEALTH, WEALTH AND 

LOVE. By JULIA SETON, M.D. $1.00 net 

Have Health — Cain Wealth — Learn to Love 
Dr. Seton has written a wonderful book showing 
just how, through proper control of the mind, these 
three things can be added to all of us. 
HEALTH results from the operation of health laws. 
In order to have health we must induce health 
thoughts that extend through every particle of our 
flesh. 

WEALTH: The first step toward wealth is "recogni- 
tion of wealth." Thoughts are like streams and each 
thought runs in its own channel, and the mind that 
is given over to wealth and success can have no room 
for the creation of lesser things. 

LOVE: In order to get love we must give love and 
upon our power of giving depends our love supply. 

THE SCIENCE OF SUCCESS. A Philoso- 
phy of Life. 

By JULIA SETON, M.D. 12mo. Cloth $1.00 

The Science of Success is an attempt to show the 
fundamental principles which underlie real success in 
life. Its statements are clear and forcible, and the 
"logic" of the various chapters is plain and under- 
standable. It is a thoughtful book for thinking peo- 
ple. It will make you think, and it is only the man 
who thinks that ever hits the trail to success. 

CONCENTRATION: The Secret of Success. 

By JULIA SETON, M.D. 16mo. Boards 50c 

The opening paragraph rivets the attention because 
It states the proposition that the whole world is seek- 
ing happiness, no matter how diverse the paths may 
seem, and that everything in life combines to make 
happiness the greatest prize of life. The subject of 
"Concentration" is discussed at a new angle and is a 
revelation of what the cultivation of the habit of 
concentration can accomplish, while the distinction is 
sharply drawn between the people who know what 
they want and go after it and those who don't and 
just loiter along. 

THE SELF IN TUNE: Freedom Talks. 
First Series. 

By JULIA SETON, M.D. 12mo. Cloth $1.00 

A collection of talks for those who seek to know 
how to make their lives harmonious and to attain 
their own highest development. 

They represent the very essence of all New Thought 
literature, containing as they do the fundamentals 
around which all metaphysical and occult wisdom is 
gathered. 

They will satisfy while they instruct and ore can 
feel the radiance of truth and power. 



BOOKS THAT WILL HELP YOU 
and THOSE YOU WANT TO HELP 



CONFIDENTIAL CHATS WITH BOYS. 

By WILLIAM LEE HOWARD, M.D. 

12mo. Cloth $1.00 

Send your boy out into the world morally and physic- 
ally clean. Give him a copy of Dr. Howard's book — 
a sensible, simple statement of the inexorable laws of 
Nature, the penalties that must be paid for their vio- 
lation and sage advice upon body and mind training. 
Adopted as standard by numerous boys' schools. 

FACTS FOR THE MARRIED. 

By WILLIAM LEE HOWARD, M.D. 

12mo. Cloth $1.00 

Is the result of a practising physician's years of 
experience helping husbands and wives to remedy the 
results of misunderstanding and ignorance. If you 
are married this book will solve many of the prob- 
lems that have perplexed and worried you. If you 
are going to be, read Dr. Howard's work and prepare 
yourself to enjoy in full the rich and varied blessinga 
that come with marriage. 

PLAIN FACTS ON SEX HYGIENE. 

By WILLIAM LEE HOWARD, M.D. 

12mo. Cloth $1.00 

The Black Plague with its millions of victims is a 
daily menace to you and your children. What do you 
know about it — how are you guarding against it? 
Dr. Howard tells you straight from the shoulder what 
you ought to know of the spread of the social evil. 
Don't trust to luck. Get your copy of the book today. 
Tomorrow may be too late. 

CONFIDENTIAL CHATS WITH GIRLS. 

By WILLIAM LEE HOWARD, M.D. 

12mo. Cloth $1.00 

A delicate yet thoroughly frank presentation of phys- 
ical and sex development. A book resulting from Dr. 
Howard's long years of practice, aiming to help grow- 
ing girls to understand the changes that lead to 
womanhood, together with valuable suggestions con- 
cerning dress, diet, exercise, etc. "Morally and hygien- 
ically among the most important books of the decade." 

WHAT'S IN YOUR NAME? 

By CLIFFORD W. CHEASLEY. 

12mo. Cloth $1.00 

The Science of Letters and Numbers is an easy, 
practical way by which you can know yourself — what 
you really are, what you appear to be to others. 



BOOKS THAT WILL HELP YOU 
and THOSE YOU WANT TO HELP 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SOLAR 
PLEXUS AND SUBCONSCIOUS MIND. 

By JULIA SETON, M.D. 16mo. Boards 50c 

Teaches scientifically, metaphysically and psycho- 
logically the action of the real centers of being in the 
physical body and their direction and control from the 
higher psychiatry of the mind. 



THINK RIGHT: For Health and Success. 

By GRACE M. BROWN. 12mo. Cloth $1.00 

If you are a normal man or woman, you aim to 
achieve greater success, to attain to greater happiness 
in life. And you can do it. Think Right. A little 
time, a little effort under proper guidance will reveal 
powers within your control that you do not now sus- 
pect. It's worth the trifling cost of this book to 
learn how to use these powers to accomplish your 
worthiest ambitions. 



MENTAL HARMONY: Its Influence on Life. 

By GRACE M. BROWN. 12mo. Cloth $1.00 

The man who knows how to govern his life from 
the inner forces, rather than be subject to outer con- 
ditions, will maintain a natural poise that will hold 
him immune from most of the worries and perplexities 
that would ordinarily confront him. 



A complete catalogue will be sent on request 






EDWARD J. CLODE, Publisher, New York 



